


i'll fix you (with my love)

by Shipper_Of_Ships



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Found Family, Gay yearning, I suck at tagging, M/M, Slow Burn, it gets sad before it gets better, it takes 30k for them to meet but they do in ch 6, like i mean sloooow burn, prepare yourselves, sorta rewrite sorta coda, these idiots need to get their shit together, they get therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2020-12-23 21:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21088412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shipper_Of_Ships/pseuds/Shipper_Of_Ships
Summary: People, Eddie has come to realize, are a lot like buildings. Without proper care and maintenance, they’ll start to fall apart.OR, the one where Eddie and Buck learn that sometimes, a home isn't four walls and a roof. Sometimes, it's a person. It's just going to take a little fixing up to get where they need to be.





	1. We'll Be Okay (Just not at first)

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter only consists of Eddie/Shannon, but I swear it's a buddie fic. It's just coming later. Don't worry, Shannon won't be around for long. (Ths beginning stuff is Eddie's life before he comes to LA.) I hope you enjoy it!

_ “I lost my way _

_ All the way to you and _

_ In you, _

_ I found all the way back _

_ to me.” _

_ \-- _Atticus

**Eddie**

**I.**

People, Eddie has come to realize, are a lot like buildings. Without proper care and maintenance, they’ll start to fall apart. 

When Eddie comes home from his last tour, his foundation is cracked, some of the fractures caused by his time in Afghanistan (none of them cemented over, just ignored and patched-filled with the blood of his fallen brothers and sisters, of dust, and grim, and _so much blood _) while fresher wounds have been drilled when he realizes that Shannon won’t be coming home (but unfortunately, he doesn't know this part till later, when the phone call stop coming). 

But they heal a little when he comes walking through the airport and spots Christopher, eyes heavy from the long plane ride home, but body wired with energy that comes from the jet-leg that fuels him every step of the way, that makes the movements easy and graceful despite the anxiety that swells like a sandstorm in his chest.

It’s when he goes to grab his bag from the baggage claim area when he sees them, his wife and son, only meters away. He finds them before they find him, and he’s stuck, muscles locking up when he can see over the crowd of heads of bystanders a crown of red-brown hair that could only belong to Shannon.

The first thing that pops into his head when he looks at her is, _She cut it. _

The last time he’d seen his wife, at this very same airport, almost a year ago, the length of her hair had gone to her hips. But now, the wavy strands reach to her shoulders. She wears a yellow sundress and a jean-jacket. 

It’s Texas, so it’s a million degrees outside, and the air-conditioning inside the building isn’t doing much to keep the heat out. But Eddie knows the sweat that collecting on his palms isn’t caused by the heat. 

When he forces himself to look away from her, finding it easy to keep his eyes on her instead of what he’s dreading to see, he glances down to the little bundle in her arms. In Shannon’s arms is Christopher, his son, and once he sees him, Eddie can’t look away. 

He’s so much bigger then he’d appeared on their occasional Skype call. While still shorter than the rest of the kids his age -- a fact Shannon couldn’t help but bring up whenever she updated Eddie on Chris’s development -- Eddie didn’t care if he’s kid grew to be five-five feet or six. 

From where he stands, Eddie can’t make out son’s face, as it’s mushed into his mother’s shoulder, just a curly head of brown hair. He’s wearing beige shorts and a blue striped t-shirt and Superman light-up velcro shoes. 

When Christopher turns his head to the side, just slightly, Eddie catches a brief glimpse of his face and air gets knocked out of him. It feels like the world stops moving for a moment, and nothing else matters. The only thing Eddie sees is his son, what happens outside of that isn’t important.

Grainey video chats and the rare picture Eddie would receive in his mail hadn’t done Christopher justice. He’s beautiful.

For the first time, Eddie can’t even remember why he’d been dreading seeing his child in the first place. How could he be frightened by something as adorable as his sleeping son?

Without a second thought, he’s grabbing his bag from off the belt and racing as fast as he can towards his family. He elbows his way through the crowd. Curses and complaints are thrown his way, but they fall flat on deaf ears as he continues forward. Nobody puts up much of a fight when they notice his uniform -- the crowd even begins to clear a path for him. 

The commotion catches Shannon’s attention and her confused gaze turns from the faces of strangers as she tries to figure out what’s happening and falls on him. 

Her blue eyes widen in shock, but a small, relieved smile pulls at her lips. 

“_Eddie!_” she cries out, waving her hand at him while the other keeps hold of Christopher, who rouses from his slumber at the sound of his mother’s voice. Eddie comes to a screeching halt a foot away from the two of them, heart beating fast in his chest as he watches his wife rub Christopher’s back and dips her head low to his ear to speak to him. 

It’s impossible to hear what’s spoken between them, every word soft-spoken. 

Eddie can only stand there and wait patiently with bated breath.

It takes a second for Shannon’s words to sink in, Christopher’s four-year-old brain needing a moment to let everything register. But when it does and he realizes what’s going on, he turns as much as he can in his mother’s arms to look over his shoulder. Much like Shannon’s had, Chris’s big brown eyes widen, peering up at Eddie with both surprise and excitement. 

“_ Daddy! _” He squeals, small body shaking, face lit up with joy. But then, quieter, unsure, he asks, “...Are you really...here?”

The words are coherent and clear, but it takes Chris a second to piece a sentence together. 

In what little free time he had when he’d come home from overseas, Eddie had spent time researching everything he could on what a child would or could experience when living with cerebral palsy. Speech pattern was something that could be affected and while it was sad to witness to see his son struggle with something that should be simple, Eddie couldn’t have been more proud. 

“Yeah, buddy,” he says, inching closer, a grin pulling at his mouth as his eyes start to sting. “It’s me. I’m here.”

With the reassurance that Eddie is, in fact, real or not some sort of hallucination, Christopher, with as much might as he could muster, wiggles in Shannon’s arms, his own stretched out and reaching for his father. Eddie doesn’t hesitate to close the distance and grab his son. 

Shannon let’s go of Chris once he’s safely secured in Eddie’s grasp.

“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” Christopher babbles happily, arms winding around his father’s neck, his chin resting on a muscled shoulder. 

Eddie’s hand goes to Chris’s back, gripping at his shirt, lips pressed to Christopher’s temple. Inhaling deeply, Eddie breathes in the scent of his son’s shampoo -- some kid-friendly brand that supposedly smells like cucumbers and lime -- the smell of which still lingers, and his mother’s floral perfume that’s rubbed off onto his clothes.

Christopher smells of childhood, of time spent in a bubble-bath, of mowed-grass, of home-cooked meals. Somewhere, mingled in within it all, there’s a hint of the familiar fabric softener Shannon uses when doing the laundry. 

It takes a moment to recognize why it’s so familiar. 

All of it, put together, smell like family; it smells like home.

Eddie has spent so long in the desert, surrounded by sand and dirt, that he’s completely forgotten what it’s like to smell something clean. All of his clothes in his bag have an earthy scent to them. The ones he’s currently wearing smell like sweat and air-plane. 

Looking at his little family, who are dressed in fresh clothes, completely unstained, Eddie feels self-conscious and a little guilty. Compared to them, he looks like he hasn’t taken a bath in a month. Which, to be fair, it’s only been a couple of days since his last shower. 

When Christopher huffs into his neck, Eddie has to hold back a cringe. He couldn’t possibly smell good. The only thing he can be glad for is that at least none of what he’s wearing is blood-stained.

“Missed you, daddy,” Christopher mumbles, brown eyes locking with Eddie’s.

And god, how those eyes look so much like his. 

The older man lets out a watery laugh. “I missed you, too, buddy. So much.”

Unable to hold back the tears any longer, he lets them fall, feeling them slip down his cheeks. Shannon reaches out and grabs Eddie’s arm, squeezing it. He shoots her grateful smile, not able to talk, words getting stuck in his throat. 

“Daddy is okay?” Christopher asks as his eyebrows pinch together in concern.

Eddie presses another kiss to his son’s head, forcing himself to find his voice. “...Yeah,” he croaks out, voice thick with emotion, “daddy’s okay, Chris.”

Cradling Christopher to his chest, holding onto with a bit more grip but not too tightly to hurt him, Eddie feels his son reach up with a small hand and, unexpectedly, pat his chin. He’s never done it before, at least not to Eddie’s knowledge and certainly not to Eddie, this having been the first time. The strange action, however, has the immediate effect of calming Eddie down. 

“Daddy will be okay,” Christopher tells him and Eddie nods. 

He can’t help but believe that yes, he’ll be okay. 

Even if, right now, he doesn’t feel it.

**II.**

He’d like to say the hardest part in the first days back when off-duty is reintegrating into civilian life. But the jet-lag keeps Eddie up for the most part during the night and images of his teammates dying haunting him and flashing before his very eyes every time he blinks is enough motivation to stay awake. 

The nightmares are the easy part. 

He knows how to deal with them -- has been, even overseas, and the only difference is now instead of sleeping in a cot barely made for one, he goes to bed every night to king mattress, soft and plush beneath him, and with enough room to fit two plus a child in the middle. 

The hard part, however, is the reintegrating with his own family. 

Just like it is every time Eddie comes home, finding his place within the household is an Olympic act. 

Things are different every time he comes home.

When he had walked through the door on his first night back, he found that the furniture in the living room had been moved around and that the table in the kitchen had been replaced, and the walls repainted. 

Instead of making a big meal at home, it was agreed that it would be easier to get take-out. They’d ordered pizza, something Shannon had to do as Eddie hadn’t known what Christopher liked on his (he didn’t even know his son had started eating pizza), and they all sat on the couch watching one of Christopher’s favorite movies. 

There were plenty of times within the span of the next few weeks that made Eddie feel like a terrible father. 

But his first night back is what truly hit the worse for him. 

When Eddie had gone to select Finding Nemo from the shelf to play on the TV, Christopher had cried out that it wasn’t his favorite anymore. Of course, Eddie had been confused, but Shannon, tiredly, but ever-so-helpfully explained that Chris’s new obsession was _ Paddington _. 

It was the little slip-ups that made Eddie want to pull his hair out, you know, if he had any, as it was still growing out from the buzz-cut he’d gotten done only weeks before. 

It all would’ve been fine, but it's like the universe just had it out for him. 

From getting the wrong plate for Christopher to eat off of -- “It’s the green one, dad!” -- or not helping him fast enough to the bathroom, and it ending with Christopher having an accident in the hallway, to using the wrong bath soap -- “I told you: it’s the unscented body wash, Eddie. Here, let me do it.” -- and it culminating in having Shannon help him with something as simple as putting his son to bed.

After Shannon had gotten Christopher dressed in his pajamas, Eddie had tucked him in for the night. 

“I’m sorry,” he had told Christopher, who had only shrugged sleepily and patted his cheek again. 

“It’s okay,” Christopher had said, “We all...make messes. Mommy says we just have to...try harder and clean them up.”

And well, Eddie couldn’t fault that logic. 

So on it went, with Eddie trying harder to figure it all out. 

Figuring out Christopher, while not easy, wasn’t exactly difficult. 

He’s a kid, who wanted to play like any other. While he wasn’t exactly as fast as all the other children his age, it didn’t mean he couldn’t have fun. Eddie makes sure to spent most of his free time with Christopher, following along with the schedule Shannon had made to keep Christopher in a routine. 

Between Christopher and himself, they figured out what worked and what didn’t. 

It started with them getting ready together in the mornings. 

Eddie, up first, would get dressed and make coffee for himself and Shannon. Then, he’d wake Christopher, and they’d eat breakfast together, where found his first new challenge. Making sure both yourself and your child eat a healthy breakfast is important but also already tough as it is, and while Christopher wasn’t a picky eater, he didn’t have the finesse it took to hold a spoon steady and put it in his mouth at the same time. 

For Eddie, he learned, over actual spilled milk, a broken bowl, and tons of wasted cereal, how to feed both himself and his son at the same time.

The next challenge was getting Christopher dressed. It was explained by Chris that Shannon usually chooses what he’s going to be wearing that day, but Eddie noticed the way Christopher’s lips curled into a pout when he told him that. So, Eddie let Christopher pick his outfits, even if they consisted of mismatched socks and weird clothing combinations. However, Eddie feels about seeing his kid dressed in rumpled shirts did nothing to compare to absolute joy on Christopher’s face when he got to wear what he wanted.

For Eddie, the smile on Christopher’s face was all that mattered. 

But, to Shannon, it wasn’t. 

They have their first argument the second week he’s home, just as both he and Christopher are coming through the door. 

“Mommy!” The boy shouts out, teetering on his crutches as he calls for his mother. “_ Moooommy _ , _ we’re home! _” 

Shannon comes rounding the corner from where she’s been in the kitchen, and from the smell that wafts through the air, apparently making something for lunch. She smiles at the sight of Christopher, but it doesn’t go unnoticed by Eddie the disapproving way she looks at her son’s outfit of choice. 

“How was the park?” she asks, bending down to be at Chris’s level, planting her hands on his cheeks and kissing him lovingly on the forehead. 

“Awesome!” Christopher says, vibrating with glee. “Daddy and I went down the slide together and fed the ducks!”

“Oh, you did?” Shannon continues to smile down at Christopher but shoots Eddie a dark look. “I’m glad you had fun. How about we go get you washed up and then you can go play in your room, okay?”

Christopher nods. “Okay.”

Eddie stands by the door watching as the two walks down the hall to the bathroom. Taking off his shoes, he places them on the shoe rack and puts Christopher’s backpack on a hook, the one that’s placed lowest to the ground for easy access. 

Smelling something beginning to burn, he rushes over to the kitchen and quickly assesses the situation. On the stove, in a pan, four grilled-cheese sandwiches are cooking. The cheese has melted and has begun to pool out of the sides of the pieces of bread. Quickly, he moves the pan off the burner, switching it off and grabbing plates from the cupboard. 

As he’s gotten the last sandwich onto a plate, he hears footsteps padding against the floor. 

Glancing over his shoulder, he spots Shannon. 

From the way her arms are crossed over her chest, he steadies himself for a fight. 

“What is it?” he asks, taking a knife from a drawer and cutting Christopher’s sandwich into strips.

“‘What is it?’” Shannon spits back mockingly, coming up to him. “Did you see Chris’s wearing? Those weren’t the ones I picked for him.”

“So?” Getting one of the plastic cups from the cupboard and the apple juice from the fridge, he fills the cup with it. “What’s the big deal about what he wears?”

“Because,” Shannon says, taking the plate and cup and putting both on a tray, “They are wrinkled. And they don’t at all match.”

“Oh, well, god-forbid they don’t match, Shan.” He grumbles, taking his sandwich in hand and biting into it. “What would the kids think? We can’t let them know he doesn’t have style.”

“Ugh! It’s not about that!” Shannon cries, hands flying in the air. “Eddie, did you even think for a second that he won’t get made fun of? He already walks funny, he doesn’t need to dress horrible, too.”

At this, Eddie goes still. “Are...Are the kids in his playgroup making fun of him?”

His wife nods. “Not directly to his face, but the kids whisper.” She sighs deeply, pinching her nose. “...God, Eddie, you wouldn’t believe what their parents have to say. What they do say. Some of them won’t even let their children play with Christopher. They keep them away from him like he’s contagious!”

Putting his sandwich back on its plate, he walks around the kitchen island and wraps Shannon up in his arm, pulling her in for a hug. She rests her head on his chest, arms curling around his waist. 

“It’s not fair!” she cries, eyes glassing over with tears. His heart aches at the sight. “He’s not contagious! It’s like he’ll get anybody else sick from his CP, he just wants to have friends. Why won’t those assholes just let him have friends!”

He pets her hair, pressing kisses into it. “I know, _mi amor_. It’s not fair.”

Eddie holds her while Shannon sobs into his shirt. He rocks the two of them back and forth, shushing her and whispering reassuring words into her hair, not letting her go until she’s calmed down. 

Pushing a strand of hair behind her ear, he asks, “Feeling better?”

She nods. “Yes.”

“Would you like some water?” He receives another nod in response.

Untangling himself from her, Eddie gets another cup from the cupboard and fills it with water from the sink. Handing it over, he instructs her, “Here -- take slow sips, Shan. There you go.”

“Thanks,” she tells him over the rim of the cup, sipping on the water. Taking the cup in both hands, she sits down at the kitchen table. Eddie watches her from where he leans against the counter, silently finishing the rest of his sandwich. 

After she’s done with the water, Shannon drums her fingers against the table. 

It’s another long moment before she speaks up. “...Did you seriously let Chris go down a slide, Eddie?”

_ Oh, so this is where it’s heading... _

Eddie sighs. “Not by himself,” he tells her, putting his plate in the dishwasher. “We went down together, with him in my lap. He was perfectly safe.”

“_Safe?_” She huffs out a sarcastic laugh. “Christopher’s four, Eddie! He’s a child with CP!”

“I’m well aware of his condition,” he says, teeth grinding together. “But I wouldn’t have done it with him if I thought it was dangerous. You saw him, Shannon, he was completely fine!”

“You don’t know that!” She half-shouts, half-whispers as she stands up from her chair. “What if the next time he decides to try it by himself? What then?”

“Then we deal with it,” he tells her, walking towards her but coming to a stop when motions for him to do so. “...There’s already so much that Christopher is limited in doing -- that he’ll be limited to doing for the rest of his life. We can’t limit his childhood, too.”

“I know that!” She sobs angrily. “Don’t you think I know that? I’m the one that’s here -- that’s with him _ every day _ . I know _ exactly _ what kind of limitations he has!”

“And what, you think I don’t?”

“No,” Shannon shakes her head, staring him dead in the eye. “I don’t.”

He reels back. “How can you say that?”

“Because I’m the one that’s with him every day, Eddie.” She says, walking up to him. 

“Me,” Shannon points to herself, “Not you.” 

She takes the same finger and digs it into his chest. 

Eddie remains still, ignoring the ache it causes. 

“You’re not there for all the times when he wakes up screaming, crying for his father to come home. Where he has nightmares that you’re dead -- or worse, that you just_ left _ him. You’re not here to clean up the mess, Eddie. _ I am _. I’m always the one that’s here. But where are you, huh? Where are you? Oh, let me think.” 

She pretends to ponder the thought for a moment. “Oh, that’s right. Half-way across the world, caring more about your country than your own damn family!”

“That’s not fair!” He growls, hand landing on the tiled surface of the kitchen island, gripping at the edge, needing something to anchor him. Somewhere in the distance, he can hear bombs going off, of the rhythmic sound of a machine gun, the clink of bullet casings hitting the ground.

“Isn’t it?” Eddie can barely hear Shannon’s words over the gunfire.

It’s suddenly too hot in the room, and all Eddie wants to do is find someplace cool to lay in, to find cover. But he can’t move, his feet stuck on the fire. And he’s _ stuck, stuck, stuck _. 

Looking at Shannon she can see her lips moving, but he can’t hear her. He’s gone deaf to the world, the only thing playing in his ears is the sounds of battle, and whatever falls in between that is a muddled mess. 

He notices the way the storm that’s been building in her blue eyes dyes out, fades into a mellow, yet worried pool.

He feels like he’s sinking, his mind a palace of horrors, and the terror in his chest sits heavily like a block of ice. Too busy trying to keep breathing, Eddie doesn’t even realize that a hand is pulling on his pants until gets dizzy enough that he ends up looking down and finds Christopher standing in front of him.

“Dad?” His son’s voice cuts through the sounds of cries of pain and gunfire that are playing on a loop in his head. Gazing down at Christopher, into his brown eyes, Eddie feels like he’s had a bucket of cold water poured over him. 

His senses return to him, and he can suddenly remember where he is.

_ In the kitchen. With Shannon and Christopher. _

He’s no longer working hard to keep people alive on a battlefield. As long as he can remember that, Eddie promises that he’ll be fine. That he’ll be okay.

“Daddy, you okay?” Christopher asks and Eddie breathes out, then breathes in.

_ 1, 2, 3, 4 in _ and _ 1, 2, 3, 4 out. _

Using his free hand, Eddie holds Christopher to him, not daring to take his hand off the counter, knowing that right now, it was the only thing keeping him up. 

“Yeah, _ mijo _. Daddy’s going to be okay.”

“Eddie,” he hears Shannon speak, but he doesn’t look at her, just keeps looking at Christopher. 

“You hungry?” He asks his son instead of talking to his wife.

“Yeah!” 

“Great! How about I join you and we can read some comics together?”

He lets Christopher walk out of the kitchen on his own, wobbling slightly on his crutches with every step. Slowly, Eddie follows behind him, keeping an eye on his son to make sure he doesn’t fall and trying to maintain his balance at the same time while carrying a tray.

“Hurry, dad!” Christopher calls and Eddie lets out a weak laugh. 

“I’m coming!”

**III.**

Shannon and he don’t talk for the rest of the day.

Keeping to themselves, they stay out of each other’s way, only interacting if it has to do with something Christopher needs. 

When night falls and the stars have come out and Christopher is sound asleep, Eddie knows he can’t avoid what happened in the kitchen earlier. Sitting on his side of the bed, he’s re-setting his alarm clock just as Shannon walks through the bedroom door. 

“We need to talk,” she says, just like, blunt and to the point. 

Eddie almost drops the alarm clock at her words.

“W-What?” He spins around, turning to face her.

“We need to talk,” she repeats, adding, “About what happened this afternoon.”

“Okay,” he agrees, unsure of where this is going.

“Before any of that, there’s I need to know.” Shannon starts slowly, coming to sit at the end of the bed. “I want to...No, I _ need _ to know when you get shipped off next.”

“Why? You planning on kicking me out?” He jokes, trying to lighten the mood but she only sends him an unamused look. 

“I’m serious, Eddie!” She takes one of the pillows from the top of the head and hits him in the arm with it. “This is important!” 

“I know!” He shakes off the pillow. “...In two months, maybe? I don’t really know. They weren’t specific about a date.”

Shannon sighs. “This is what I was afraid of.”

“What’s that?” He asks, scooching closer to her. Hesitantly, he reaches out for her hand and is glad when grabs it, letting him twine their fingers together. 

She bites her lip. “I don’t...I don’t want to hurt you, Ed. But I’m terrified of you leaving again. Every time you go, it just...It just takes everything.”

“Everything to what?”

Shannon doesn’t answer, she just gazes down at the mattress. He can only watch as tears slip down her face, dripping off her chin. He rubs at her knuckles, trying to comfort her in the best way he can but not knowing what else to do for her. 

When she finally speaks, it feels like hours have passed, but in reality, it’s only been minutes. 

He doesn’t catch what she says, however, so he asks, “What was that?”

She tips her head up but doesn’t meet his eye. “I said, ‘It takes everything to not leave’.”

He shoots her a puzzled look. “Like, ‘leave’ as in, this marriage?” 

She shrugs, whispering, “...Leave the marriage...this house...just leave all of it behind.”

Anxiety curls around his lungs and he grips tighter at her hand. “Come on, Shan, you don’t mean that!”

“But I do!” she cries, ripping her hand from his grasp. “I do! You have no idea what it’s like, how hard it’s been. I love Christopher, I really do, but it all just so much when dealing with it. With his meds, and his PT, and making sure he has everything he needs! It’s too much, Eddie! And I...I don’t think I can do it anymore…”

She puts her face in her hands and cries. 

He pulls her close and rubs her back. 

“God,” she says between sobs, “You must think I’m a horrible mother.”

“No,” he says, and he means it. When Eddie thinks about all the things that Shannon has to do in a day just for Christopher, let alone herself, it’s all a lot. He’s only two weeks in and everything feels like a new discovery when it comes to his son. “What do you need, _mi amor?_ Tell me.”

She slowly gazes up at him. “You, Eddie. I need you.” More tears spill down her cheeks and he wipes them away, holding back his own. “But I’m not going to get that, am I? In a few weeks or few months, you won’t be here and I’ll be left alone, all over again and I can’t do it, Eddie. I’m sick of not having anyone to depend on! Of not having someone to have my back!”

“I’ll fix it,” he tells her, “I’ll find a way.”

Shannon only laughs. “Oh, right. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Shan -- ” he starts, but she pulls away from him. 

Getting up off the bed, she grabs her pillow and heads for the door. Before opening it, she turns to look at him.

“I’m sleeping in the guest room tonight.” And with that, she walks out. 

Eddie just stares at the closed door.

**IV.**

Eddie is awoken the next morning by Shannon frantically scrambling about the room, one of the house phones in her hand while she rifles through the closet with the other. She’s got a pair of jeans on, with one pant leg ridden up while the other is down at her ankle, her hair is disheveled and she’s got on a full face of make-up that appears to have been done in a haste.

“Shan?” He sits up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Glancing over at the clock, he sees it’s only five in the morning. A groan builds in his throat. _ Great. _ He’s only been asleep for less than two hours.

“Huh?”

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for my clothes and my suitcase,” she tells him absently, and that has Eddie suddenly _very_ awake. 

Throwing the covers back, he plants his feet on the floor and walks over to her. He calls her name again, but when she proceeds to ignore him, he grabs her by the shoulders and gives her a gentle shake. 

It does the trick. 

Snapping out of her daze, she blinks at him. “What are you doing?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” he says and guides her to sit on the bed. “Now, what’s got you in such a state?”

She takes a deep breath. “I got a call earlier from the hospital where my mother lives. They told me…” she pauses, words getting shakey as she tells him, “Eddie, they said she had a stroke.”

“Okay,” he says, processing the information. “They need you to go down there?”

Shannon nods. “Yes. They need me down there to sign some papers.”

“Do you need to leave right now?” Another nod.

Eddie takes a moment to think.

“Okay, uh...Have you already booked a ticket?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, let’s go and see what’s available, okay? And then we’ll pack you up.” 

“You sure?” She asks, gazing up at him.

_ No, _ Eddie thinks, _ I’m one hundred percent sure that I’m not sure. _

But he can’t tell her that, so instead, he nods. “It’s your mom, Shan. Of course, I’m sure. We’ll figure everything out after you make sure she’s okay, alright?”

Shannon pulls him in for a hug and all Eddie can do is hold her tight. 

“We’ll be okay,” he says, smoothing down her hair. “Everything will be just fine.”

The words, however sincere, taste like a lie on his tongue.

**V.**

Later that afternoon, when Shannon’s all packed up and she, Christopher, and Eddie are standing in the airport. Shannon’s got her bags and ticket in hand, while Christopher sits in Eddie’s arms, pouting and crying.

“Mom!” He cries, squirming in Eddie’s grasp. She lets go of a suitcase and walks over to him and grabs him from Eddie. 

“I love you, Christopher,” she says, rocking him in her arms. “I love you so much.”

There are tears in her eyes. 

“Don’t go,” Christopher begs, and both Shannon and Eddie gaze down at their son sadly. 

“I have too, buddy.” She tells him, cupping his cheek. “Remember what daddy and I told you earlier? Grandma is sick and she needs mommy’s help, so I have to go. But I promise to call you every day while I’m gone, okay? It won’t be forever. Just a little while.”

“You promise?” Christopher stares up at his mother with hopeful eyes. 

She nods, “I promise, baby.”

She plants one last kiss to his forehead before passing him back to Eddie.

“Take care of each other,” she says to her husband.

“We will,” Eddie responds, and she stands on her tip-toes and presses a kiss to his lips. It’s short, but it lingers, and Eddie never wants it to end.

“I love you both,” she tells the two when they pull apart, just in time as the last boarding call for her flight rings through the airport speakers above. 

“Bye, mama!” 

“Bye, Shan!”

She waves at them as she walks away. 

Soon, she disappears into the crowd and Eddie can no longer see her.

In his arms, Christopher sniffles sadly. 

Bouncing him lightly, Eddie says, “We’ll be okay, kid.”

Christopher just snuggles into his chest. “Sucks,” he mumbles and Eddie can’t help but agree. 

“I’m starving! What do you say we go get some pancakes?”

Christopher’s face brightens at the mention of food.

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah!”

Together, father and son walk out of the airport, going in search of pancakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I know this story seems lengthy, and it is. It takes 30K just for these two idiots to meet. So, I understand if you don't feel like you want to take this fic on. But I hope that you will. The first five chapters are about Eddie's life before he comes to LA, back when he still lived in Texas. Chapter six is when Buck and Eddie will meet. 
> 
> (As promised above, this story isn't very heavy on the whole Eddie/Shannon pairing, but since they had been in a relationship beforehand, I had to add it into the fic. But Shannon doesn't stay around for long. She's gone pretty quickly.)
> 
> If you like and enjoy this fic, please leave a kudos/comment. They truly make my day!


	2. Figuring It Out (Is a marathon, not a sprint)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone! Thanks for all the love and support this has gotten! It means the world. I hope you enjoy part 2! More is yet to come.

**Eddie**

**VII.**

It’s later that evening when Shannon calls. 

Eddie’s just putting Christopher to bed when the phone rings. He debates on picking it up with his son in his arms but decides against it. Letting it ring, he gently places Christopher on his bed, his head rolling in his sleep. Pulling the cover over him and tucking him in, Eddie leans down and presses a kiss to his son’s forehead. 

“Night, Chris,” he whispers and then walks out of the room, but not before turning on the nightlight. Eddie leaves the door open a crack, just enough to be able to hear Christopher in case he needs something.

Grabbing the phone from its cradle, he sits down on the couch in the living room with a heaving sigh.

After punching in Shannon’s cell number, he presses the phone to his ear and waits tiredly as it rings. 

She picks up on the third ring. 

“Hello?” He hears from the phone and blinks his eyes open. “Eddie?”

“Hey,” he replies, yawning. 

“I can call back in the morning,” Shannon offers and although she’s unable to see it, Eddie shakes his head. 

“No, it’s fine.” He reassures, leaning his head against the couch cushions. “It’s just been a long day. How are things over there?”

He listens as Shannon explains the situation with her mom -- how the doctor’s explained it’s more serious then they had originally thought and her recovery period was going to take longer. She sounds as exhausted as he feels.

“That’s horrible, Shan. But she’ll be okay?” 

“Yeah,” she says, “But they’re going to keep her here for observation for about a week depending on how she responds and then after that they’ll want to discuss certain care options and what I want to do.”

“Alright,” he says, mulling it all over. “So you need more time, is what I’m getting from that?”

“Yes,” Shannon agrees, “I know it’s not what we talked about. I’m sorry, honey.”

“Hey,” Eddie cuts her off before she starts worrying. “It’s fine. Chris’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. You just worry about your mom, okay? She’s the one that needs you right now, so you just focus on that. Leave the rest to me.”

“You sure?” She asks, sounding hesitant. 

“Definitely.”

He makes sure to keep his tone confident and his voice steady when he talks. 

“I know what I’m doing.”

Thankfully, she believes him. 

(He always was better at lying to others than himself.) 

Even if Eddie doesn’t know what he doing right now, he’ll figure it out. 

Right?

**VIII.**

Shannon calls with updates every day and talks to both Christopher and Eddie, and they spend at least thirty minutes on the phone collectively. Christopher’s always excited to hear from his mother, both wanting to hear about each other’s day. He even makes a _ Get Well Soon _ card for his grandmother, and Eddie takes him and Chris to the post office to send it out.

He gets a picture on his phone the day Shannon finds it in her mother’s mail. In the photo, it sits on a little table beside her mother’s bedside. Along with the picture, he also gets a weepy voicemail that’s addressed to Christopher of Shannon explaining how grateful she is to have such a sweet son.

Eddie’s and Christopher’s daily routine isn’t as smooth and hatched together as Chris’s and his mother’s had been, but they make it work.

They still get ready together in the mornings, but Eddie sets out with a game plan. He gets Chris to pick his outfit for the next day the night before and leaves it folded on a chair at the end of his bed so that it’s ready for the morning. 

To keep in line with the routine that Shannon had been very adamant about, every morning, except for the weekends when they wake up at eight, Eddie’s alarm clock always goes off at six. He gets Christopher awake and together they eat breakfast, which is either cereal or if Eddie is feeling more put together that morning, he’ll make scrambled eggs and toast. 

Christopher has to use a step-stool to see himself in the mirror in the bathroom. He’ll stand on it when he washes his hands or when he brushes his teeth and to make sure he doesn’t fall, Eddie will stand behind him to keep him steady.

Eddie will get himself dressed first, as he’s quicker, and then he’ll go to Christopher’s room and help him. While Christopher has no problem with getting his shirt on and off, it’s everything that’s below the waist that presents a challenge for the kid. So, Eddie helps him get a clean pair of boxers on, and pants, and together, at Chris’s insistence, they do his socks. 

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday’s Christopher has his Play Group. 

It’s a small building, a converted one level house in the city. Outside are various toys that litter the lawn and a small swing-set for the children to use. 

During those days for the hour that Christopher spends there, Eddie will run around the house to get whatever chores that he hadn’t gotten to in the past couple of days done. But if there are no chores, he takes that small amount of time to catch up on some sleep he missed. 

When he does pick up Christopher, the boy is always super excited to share with his father what’s happened since he last saw him. By the time they get home, Christopher is always on the verge of falling asleep, which leaves Eddie to unbuckle him from his seat in the car and carry him from the vehicle to the house in his arms. Not that Eddie’s complaining. 

He usually lets Christopher have a thirty-minute nap and then wakes him up for a light snack before he makes dinner. 

While Eddie isn’t exactly the greatest cook, he knows enough to keep either of them from getting food poisoning. Somewhere along the way, Eddie accidentally begins the tradition of Pancake Sundays, where they make breakfast together (okay, really, it’s just Eddie mixing things together and Christopher eating all the chocolate chips before he can mix them in the batter) and eating pancakes in the living room and having a lazy morning watching cartoons. 

Christopher loves these days best and so does Eddie. 

On the days when Christopher doesn’t have play-group, they spend most of their time at home, playing board games, cleaning up the house, going to the park where they'll sometimes eat lunch at a picnic table. 

When they do go to the park, Eddie will situate himself on the swing before hauling Christopher into his lap and push them back and forth. They don’t go very high for safety reasons obviously, and while the other kids on the swings will go as high as they like, making Eddie nervous about how that will make Christopher feel seeing them soaring higher than he ever could, his son never seems to care. Well, that, or he just doesn’t notice. 

They’ll go down the slide together, which always makes Christopher laugh. 

Eddie will hold Christopher up in his arms and let him grab onto the Monkey Bars and walk him across from the bottom. 

The only real thing that Eddie doesn’t let Christopher play on is the merry-go-round. He doesn’t trust it and makes sure to keep Christopher away from it whenever they come to the park. Chris has asked about it once or twice, but will always let the subject drop whenever Eddie gives him a firm ‘no’ when the boy brings up the idea. 

It seems safe to say that Christopher isn’t all interested in the merry-go-round. 

At least, that’s what Eddie had thought.

**IX.**

It honestly couldn’t have happened at a worse moment. 

He’s on the phone with Shannon when it happens. 

Eddie had only taken his eyes off of Christopher for a moment because his cell-phone slips from his hands and gets lost somewhere under the table and he’s left to bend his large frame underneath the cement benches to grab it. 

“Hey, Shan, sorry about that --” Eddie starts, after having finally procured his phone from the gravel, but he’s interrupted when he hears,_ “Go, Christopher! Go, Christopher! Go, Christopher!” _

Eddie’s heart stops at the sound of the voices that are carried by the wind and calling his son’s name. His gaze snaps over to the merry-go-round, where the voices are coming from, and it’s then that he sees it. On the metal, spinning contraption is his son. 

His body is seated, curled into a ball, with his arms wrapped around one of the metal bars to keep himself from flying off. Boys, bigger and older then Christopher is, probably about eight or ten, are pushing the merry-go-round in circles, using all the might their young bodies can muster to make it go as fast as it can. 

Panic grips at Eddie's lungs and it’s suddenly hard to breathe.

“Shan,” he says into the phone, hurried, “I gotta go! I’ll call you right back.”

Ending the phone-call he leaves the phone on the table and leaps to his feet, racing towards his son.

“_ Christopher! _” 

At the sound of his name being called, Christopher glances over at him before quickly squeezing his eyes shut. 

“_ Daaaad! _” He hears Christopher cry out, tone pleading, and it makes Eddie move faster, desperate to get to his child. 

When the boys spinning the merry-go-round spot him approaching they’re quick to flee, running in opposite directions, the dark look he shots them being enough motivation to have them hightail it as fast as they can out of there.

Eddie comes to a halt a foot away from the ride, studying it as it spun around and around, trying to figure out the best way to approach it. He’s never found the interest of these things, never quite got how the potential of being flung off could be fun, but then he thinks, _children_.

Dumb kids who don’t think twice about climbing onto something stupid and dangerous would find it fun. 

But looking at his kid and the evident terror on his face, Eddie realizes that one of those dumb kids happens to be his child and feels a little bad for judging. 

When he tries to grab the bar, it slips passed his fingers and he stumbles, losing his footing. 

Okay, so _ that’s _ not an option.

The speed at which the merry-go-round is traveling makes it impossible to catch.

It’s then that Eddie comes to a horrible conclusion: if a forceful stop wasn’t going to work, he was simply going to have to wait for it to lose speed on its own.

“Christopher,” Eddie says, boosting the volume of his voice so his son can hear him, “Hang on! You’re going to have to wait for it to slow down before daddy can get you off of it!”

Christopher shakes his head, obviously not liking the idea of being stuck on the ride but too scared to try and get off, so he stays put, clinging for dear life.

Eddie is left to stand there, frightened and worried for his child as the merry-go-round slowly, _ ever-so-fucking-slowly _, loses speed. Eventually, it slows down enough to the point that when Eddie looks at it he no longer has the urge to vomit, and, he can grab hold of the metal bars without the risk of being dragged under. 

When his fingers wrap around the metal bar, he has to follow along with the ride for a few steps before it finally comes to a stop.

Letting it go, he rushes to Christopher’s side.

“Chris,” he says, hand on his son’s shaking shoulder, “It’s safe to come off now, _ mijo _.” 

Christopher shakes his head. “No, it’s not!”

“Yes, it is,” Eddie explains gently, rubbing at Chris’s back. “Slowly open your eyes for me, you’ll see.”

It takes a minute before the young boy dares to open his eyes. When he does, there’s a brief moment where his gaze darts around at his surroundings before he shuts them again and groans. 

“It’s all spinny,” he grumbles, and Eddie chuckles lightly.

“I bet,” he says, continuing to rub soothing circles on his son’s back. “You think you might be able to get off?”

Christopher simply shrugs, keeping his eyes closed. “Don’t know.”

“Okay. How about I lift you off then?” 

Liking this idea better, he nods, which just makes the boy groan. “Bad...bad idea.”

Eddie carefully and very gently peels Christopher from off the ride and pulls him to his feet. He wobbles a little, and Eddie places his hands under his armpits, holding the kid up. Taking a moment to steady himself, Christopher reluctantly opens his eyes, brown gaze locking with Eddie’s.

“You alright, bud?”

Chris smiles at him, but then his eyes widen and for a second, nothing happens. But then, faster then Eddie can blink, Christopher is bent over and throwing up. Everything he’s had for lunch empties from his stomach onto the ground at his feet. 

“_ Oh!” _ Eddie gasps in surprise, more shocked by the vomit landing on his shoes then by the fact that his son has a sick stomach. You go that fast, and you’re bound to feel terrible afterward. 

“Everything okay?” 

Chris, now dry heaving, gives him a thumbs up. “Never...better.”

“How about we get you home, huh?”

“Good idea,” Chris agrees but goes still when Eddie tries to get them walking.

Eddie glances down at his son. “What is it, _mijo_? Do you need to throw up again?”

Christopher shakes his head, cheeks going pink, which raises Eddie’s hackles.

“Chris,” Eddie says, concern filtering through his tone, “what’s the matter?”

“I...uh…” Chris stammers, and then, very quietly admits, “...I had an accident.”

It takes a second for Eddie to understand what Chris is saying.

But when he looks down at his son’s pants and sees a dark stain on the front, it dawns on him -- he’s peed himself. 

“Oh,” Eddie says, when he sees tears start to shine in Christopher’s eyes he’s quick to bend down to his son’s level and gather him in a hug. “No, hey, Christopher it’s fine. Okay? Things like this happen. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“Really?” Chris sniffles. 

Eddie nods, using his thumb to brush away any fallen tears. “Definitely. Now, we’re going to get you home and into a bath and we can watch whatever movie you want. Sound fun?”

Chris nods, but it’s not very enthusiastic. 

Sighing, Eddie picks Christopher up and heads over with him in his arms to their picnic table. Using one hand, he grabs all their things and shoved them into the large, re-usable grocery bag he had brought along that carried their lunch. 

He cradles the handles of the bag in the crook of his elbow, while he carries his phone and keys in his palm. 

As he walks to the car, he sees that he has several messages and three missed calls all from Shannon and decides that he’ll call her once he’s at home and Christopher’s all clean and dealt with. 

(He tells himself it’s because he doesn’t want to keep Christopher in soiled clothes for any longer then he needs to be in them in the time it takes for them to get back home and not because he’s putting off the worried and very angry call that he’ll be getting from his wife later. 

No, absolutely not. That would be ridiculous.)

And when they do get home and Christopher’s fresh from his bath, hair still wet, and dressed in fresh clothes and sitting on the couch, re-watching _Paddington_ for the millionth time, Eddie’s in the hallway, phone to his ear, with Shannon on the other end of the line chewing him out.

“How could he have gotten that far, Eddie?” She snaps, tired, worried, and angry just as predicted. “He’s not very fast!”

“I swear I only looked away for one second, Shan,” he tries, but his words fall on deaf ears. 

“Well try harder!” Shannon shouts. “He could’ve been seriously injured!” 

“I know that! I was there!”

“Oh, you were there, you just weren’t paying attention!”

Eddie holds back a sigh, casting his eyes at the ceiling and praying for strength. 

Leaning back against the wall, he slowly descends to the floor, with Paddington and Christopher’s happy squeals in the background as Shannon yells in his ear.

He can’t even get a word in edgewise, and ultimately, the call ends with her hanging up on him mid-sentence.

Staring down at the phone in his hand, Eddie knows deep in his bones that he won’t be getting any sleep tonight.

**X.**

After that last phone-call, all the conversations following it between them are stilted and short, almost always ending in an argument. It always begins with, _ “So, how’s Christopher?” _ or “ _ How’s it going with your mother?” _ and ending with, _ “I just...You know what? I have to go.” _

When the phone-calls are between him and Shannon, the conversation never lasts for more than five minutes (and that’s on a good day) while, when it’s between Shannon and Christopher, the conversation with them carries on for about ten, fifteen minutes tops before it ends. 

If Christopher notices the tension between his father and mother, he doesn’t say anything, and Eddie does his best to take any calls pertaining to Shannon in his bedroom or the bathroom. Just anywhere where Christopher can’t overhear anything he shouldn’t. 

When Eddie can’t hide-away and Christopher’s in the room and Shannon pulls another sudden hang-up on Eddie, he’ll wait for a second and then say, ‘I love you’ into the phone, even though there’s nobody at the end of the line.

Eddie hates having to hide from his child, but if it keeps Christopher out of the line of fire, Eddie’s willing to live with the guilt. 

It continues like this for days, which turns into weeks, and Eddie actually thinks he’s getting away it. 

That is, until, his parents have him over for dinner. 

The last time he had seen them had been at the Welcome Back party they had held in his honor the first week Eddie had been back from his last tour. He’s chatted with them on the phone, but he’s been so busy with getting back into civilian life and enjoying his time with Christopher and taking care of him that he hasn’t had much time to think of them. 

It makes him feel like a terrible son, but taking care of his child comes first. 

But it all comes to a head when his mother rings him up on cool March morning, just a month and a half since he’s returned (and Shannon’s been gone) and insists that he and Christopher come over for dinner. 

“_Pero, mama_,” he had begun, but, of course, she just had to cut him off.

“I won’t be taking ‘no’ for answer Edmundo Diaz!” She had said. “You either bring your _culo_ over here, along with my cute grandson, or I’ll bring the dinner to your place!”

And well, when she put it like that, Eddie certainly wasn’t going to tell her no. 

So, that’s how Eddie found himself dressed in dark jeans, one of his nicer Henley’s, sitting outside of his parent’s house hiding in his car. 

“So, you remember your manners?” He asks Christopher, who sits in his booster seat in the back. His son nods. 

“Say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and no elbows on the table!” 

Eddie smiles proudly. “Good job! Now, what about--”

“And leave my shoes at the door...and wash my hands before dinner!” Christopher cuts him off, clapping his hands. “Can we go in now? I’m hungry!”

Eddie sighs and relents. 

“Yes, we can go in now.”

_ No more stalling. _

Hopping out of the car, he moves to the back and untangles Christopher from his seatbelt. He wants to carry his son in his arms, but Christopher insists he can do it himself. 

He travels a foot behind Christopher as he walks up the driveway to the front door, his crutches carrying him along the way. Eddie keeps an eye on him, ready to catch the kid in case he falls, but Christopher never falters. 

He does, however, need help to get up the porch steps, and Eddie gratefully assists him.

Christopher’s feet have barely hit the porch floor when the front door flies open to reveal Eddie’s mother, Helena Diaz.

Her brown hair falls little passed her shoulders, curled slightly, and her lips tinted with red lipstick. She wears jeans and a wine red blouse. She greets both her son and grandson with an affectionate smile and hauls them both in for a hug and kiss.

Christopher revels in the attention, but Eddie can’t but let out a low whine.

“_Mama!_” he cries under his breath as he ushers Christopher inside, trying to sneakily wipe away at his cheek with his knuckles which come away smeared in lipstick. 

“Oh, you hush!” She chuckles, placing another quick peck on Eddie’s chin, the only place she can reach without having to stand on her tip-toes.

Helena helps Christopher out of his coat, leaving Eddie to busy himself with removing his leather jacket and shoes, grumbling lowly about being a grown-ass man all the while hoping his mother can’t hear him.

She guides them into the living room, where she sits across them.

“Where’s papa?” Eddie questions, looking around for his father but finding him nowhere in sight. 

“In the backyard, grilling the steaks,” his mother answers, gesturing somewhere behind her at the kitchen. Focusing on the backyard, Eddie can just barely smell the scent of smoke and cooking meat that’s coming from that particular direction.

His stomach grumbles in response. 

Beside him, Christopher giggles. “Daddy’s hungry!”

Helena laughs along right with him. “He sure is!”

Eddie rolls his eyes but smiles at the two of them.

He can’t remember the last time he’d seen his mother and his son in the same room together. If he thinks about it, it must’ve been some time two tours ago, when Chris was about two and a half. 

His memories, however, are vague and it leaves him feeling sad. 

_ Has it really been that long? _

Before he can begin to dwell on it, he’s brought back from his thoughts and into reality with Christopher poking him in the side.

He glances down at the boy. “What is it?”

“Abuela is talking to you, daddy,” Christopher informs him, pointing over at his grandmother. 

Eddie turns his gaze towards his mother, quirking an eyebrow at her. “_ Si _?”

“I was wondering how things are going with you and Christopher,” Helena tells him, and Eddie shrugs. 

“Good. We’re figuring stuff out as it goes, but we’ve been doing okay. Haven’t we, bud?” He nudges his son with his elbow and Christopher nods. 

“Oh yeah! Daddy and I go to the park and we feed the ducks...and we watch movies and play board-games...and he helps me with my counting.” Christopher rambles on excitedly, always eager to talk and share about his day. Eddie has absolutely no idea where it gets it from because neither Shannon or he is big social-butterflies, but strangely, they somehow made one. 

Helena, fascinated by her grandson, listens to his fun stories. 

Eddie’s glad that the two have formed a relationship. He knows in the past that his parents weren’t always on board with having a disabled grandchild, but seeing them interact right now pulls at his heartstrings. 

He realizes, as the two converse, how far they’ve come. 

He remembers a time, so far and long ago, when his mother couldn’t even handle being in the same room as Christopher without having some sort of freak out about his disability. He’s happy that she’s been able to look passed Christopher’s disability and see a person. 

Eddie knows it’s been hard (he’s still learning that as fragile as his son is, he’s more than his bad diagnosis).

As Christopher is just finishing his story, Eddie’s father, Ramon, walks into the living room. Eddie sees him coming through the corner of his eye and turns, suddenly very alert at his father’s presence. In his oven-mitt clad hands, Ramon holds a tray that’s tented in tin-foil. The smell wafting from the tray is delicious and Eddie can only guess that those are the steaks. 

“Dinner ready,” Ramon announces to the room and beside Eddie, Christopher gives a little cheer. Eddie smiles down at his son and quickly picks up from off the couch with ease and setting him on the floor with his crutches. 

The boy follows after his grandfather, the ends of crutches making a rhythmic _ thunk - thunk _ on the floor as he walks. 

“He certainly is something,” he hears from behind him and tosses a glance over his shoulder to see Helena. 

“He is,” Eddie agrees, his mother flashes him a soft smile. “Chris’s very special.”

“You’re lucky to have him,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s got eat. You know how your father gets around steak. _ Cerdo _.”

Eddie laughs at that and lets himself be led into the kitchen. 

Everyone sits around the table, Chris boosted up higher with a firm piece of foam that’s placed under his butt for him to sit on. Eddie sits beside him on his right, while Helena flanks his left, and Ramon sits in between them.

Eddie serves up Christopher's plate first, cutting his steak into small, bite-sized pieces that Christopher can safely and easily eat. He gets a good helping of red rice and a pile of corn on the side. 

After everyone has food on their plate, Helena stretches her hands out for her family to take, and they all form a chain around the table and say grace. 

“Amen,” she finishes, which has the table following along in a chorus, “Amen.”

Digging into his food, Eddie uses one hand to hold his fork while his left to hold Christopher’s. He guides small bites of steak to his mouth, which the boy eats, and then some rice and corn, waiting in between each bite until he’s done to give him more food. 

Eddie ignores the looks he can feel his parents giving him -- can feel their stares burning a hole in the side of his head. 

He knows what they are probably thinking, _Why can’t he eat on his own?_ and _It’s just sad to see_ _Christopher like that, needing help. _

From the corner of his eye, he watches his mother open and closes her mouth several times, wanting to say something, but guessing from the hesitancy, Eddie knows it’s nothing good.

He knows that other kids Christopher’s age would be able to eat by themselves. That they wouldn’t need as much help at the table as Chris does. It stupid to compare Chris to them when he’s not those abled-body children. He’s a kid living with cerebral palsy, a difficult disorder that he’s always going to have. 

Christopher isn’t like other kids. Eddie never wishes him to be like any other because who his son is, is fantastic. He wouldn’t trade him for the world. He just wishes that his life would be easier.

"So, Christopher," Helena starts, always the talker between her and Eddie's father. "How's your mother?"

Eddie doesn't miss the quick look that's shared between Helena and Ramon. Instantly, he knows some part of what's to follow has been planned beforehand and sinks down in his chair, wanting to disappear. _Here we go..._

At the subject of his mother, Christopher perks up. “Mommy’s great! She told me about nanna, that she’s still sick...and needs help like I do but she’s doing better!”

“Oh, that’s great!” Helena says, her words genuine but her lips pucker a bit. “Do you know when she’s coming home? It’s been a while...almost two months? Is that right, Edmundo?”

Eddie knows, not even from the accusing tone in mother’s voice, but just by hearing her use his full name that he’s in for it now, and there’s no escaping. He can see the fire burning in his mother’s brown eyes.

“Yes,” he says, fiddling with the rice on his plate with his fork. “That’s right.”

“Will she be coming home soon?” His mother asks and he shrugs.

“The doctor’s say that Shan’s mother needs extensive medical care currently,” Eddie begins, reciting what Shannon had told him over the phone a few nights ago, during the rare call where it didn’t end with Eddie’s ears bleeding. “It was agreed that it would be best for Shannon to stay there and look after her mother for the time being and keep her company. It seems to be helping.”

What Eddie means by that is that Shannon’s mother has been more likely to do the treatments with Shannon there, but he doesn’t say that in front of Christopher. 

“So, she left you to raise your son all alone,” Ramon speaks up, sipping on his glass of beer. 

“_ No. _” Eddie shakes his head. “She left to take care of her mother. She’s coming back.”

Ramon raises a skeptical eyebrow. “You sure about that?”

“Dad,” Eddie says, staring his father down, “_ don’t _. Not here.”

_ At least, not while Christopher’s still here. _

“Things are good between you and Shannon?” Helena cuts in like she always does when she senses a fight.

Eddie almost chokes on a piece of steak at her question. 

How the hell is he supposed to answer that?

_ Oh, yes, everything’s good between us. You know, if you count the constant fighting and the hang-ups and the fact my wife’s avoiding me, then yes, mother. Everything's fine. _

Like fuck, if he can say that. 

So, instead, he replies, “Things are fine.”

He shoots his mother a ‘don’t ask’ look, and hopes she understands. Thankfully, she catches it and lets it drop. Eddie’s just about to grab another bite of his steak when Christopher speaks.

“Daddy and mommy talk really loudly on the phone,” Christopher says, sounding sullen, and Eddie’s suddenly lost his appetite. “....Daddy never sounds very happy.”

Eddie lets his fork drop on his plate and glances up at the ceiling and thinks, _ You, bastard. _

_ Thanks for that. _

The smug, ‘I-told-you-so’ smirk his father shoots him makes Eddie want to jab his fork into his eye.

Rather than replying to his son’s comment, Eddie looks to his mother and asks, “So, dessert?”

(Eddie likes to think he’s not a coward. 

He served in the army. Watched people die. Saved lives.

But being in a warzone is less terrifying than facing what he’s been trying to deny all along. 

_ What if Shannon doesn’t come back? _)

**XI.**

That evening, when Eddie’s tucking Christopher into bed, his son asks, “Is mommy coming home?”

The question strikes Eddie like a punch to the gut.

He doesn’t know what to do. Does he tell Christopher the truth? 

Does he lie to him?

Petting back Christopher's hair, Eddie looks at his son’s face, see’s the sadness his eyes harbor.

Biting his lip, Eddie forces a smile on his face. “Yeah, _mijo._ She is. It’s just going to be a while, okay?”

Chris sniffles and snuggles into the blankets. “Okay,” he says, pouting.

“Hey,” Eddie says, cupping his son’s cheeks. “We’re going to be okay, buddy.”

“Promise?” Christopher looks up at him, gaze filled with hope that Eddie doesn’t want to break.

“I promise.” He places a kiss on Chris’s forehead.

(When Eddie’s lying in his bed that night, he wonders if this is how Shannon had felt. 

He wonders how many impossible promises she made that she wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep. 

All he knows is, is that even when Shannon had been here, the bed had still felt empty. 

He doesn’t know what that means. Doesn’t want to think about what it does.

Instead, he just rolls over, and closes his eyes.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! If you enjoyed this update, leave a kudos/comment! They are fantastic and brighten my day!
> 
> If you want, you can come yell at me on tumblr [look up @dazzling-jester , I'd link it but tumblr has me as restricted because of stupid reasons like female-presenting nipples] and we can scream about these idiots together.
> 
> Or not, if that's what you prefer.


	3. Getting it Together (Is harder then it sounds)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank you thank for all the nice comments! The support is very encouraging! P.S - thanks for sticking around this far. Means a lot! Enjoy!

**Eddie**

**XII.**

Eddie likes to think that he’s doing pretty alright so far. 

(Eddie’s a liar.)

After the dinner with his parents, the nightmares return full force. He finds himself waking up at all hours of the night, tossing turning, gasping for breath. Sometimes, he’ll awake, mouth wide open and head tipped back in a silent scream.

Every morning, Eddie has to tear the sheets off the bed and throw them in the washing machine, along with his sweat-soaked clothes. For the next little while, his water bill grows higher, due to the number of showers he has to take.

He knows that no matter how many times he’s under the hot spray of the shower, he’ll never be able to wash off what happened in Afghanistan. 

(There’s no blood to clean off, no dirt under his fingernails, but he still scrubs at his skin until it’s red and raw, burying his terror under layers of body wash.)

There are days where Eddie can’t stand to be inside of the house because the walls make the suffocating feeling worse and he can’t breathe until he’s standing outside in the backyard, inhaling the cool early morning air.

He tries to be as quiet as possible for Christopher’s sake. Doesn’t want to wake the young boy up. Eddie succeeds most of the time, but there are moments in the middle of the night, times when Eddie’s startles himself out of another nightmare (somehow, it’s like the same one on repeat, people dying before him, blood on his hands, on his uniform, on the ground) and his shouts wake Christopher.

His son is an angel, who calls out for his father, wanting to know if Eddie’s okay. And Eddie will drag himself from his bed and go to Christopher, and he’ll hold the boy in his arms and rock him back to sleep with soft reassurances that Eddie’s fine.

Eddie continues to make breakfast for the both of them, trying to keep up with the routine they’ve set, but it’s hard, and the added stress of his nightmares just makes him want to lay in bed and never get up even though the thought of sleeping gives him anxiety.

He takes Christopher to his Play Group, does his usual rounds at drop-off with the other parents and forces a smile on his face (one he hopes comes off as friendly instead of fiendish) and talks with them. 

He takes notes of the ones that steer clear of him and Christopher, shoots them dark, judgemental looks, daring them to even look at his kid the wrong way. Eddie will watch as the few parents that think his son’s disability is a contagious disease, like some sort of plague, whisper to one another and he can’t help but roll his eyes. 

_ What a bunch of dumbasses _ , he’ll think to himself, trying to remain calm in the face of their ignorance. 

He’ll smile and wave, presenting a happy front, but once he’s in the car, he’ll spend the drive home with the radio blasting at full volume on some death-metal channel, screaming along with the singer, hands pounding on the steering wheel to the rhythm of the song. (His hands always ache afterward and his throat always sore, but by the time he rolls up in the driveway, he no longer feels like punching something. He takes it as a win.)

With Chris gone during the days he has Play Group, Eddie discovers something -- he can actually leave the house. The revelation comes to him when he’s on the phone with his mother and she’s asking him about how his day is going.

“I’m fine,” he had told her, “Just watching TV.”

“You need to get outside,  _ mi amor _ ,” she had said, sighing in that motherly way only a mother can when they think their child is doing something dumb but can’t stop them. “Get some fresh air.”

“How?” He’d asked, his gaze having been glued to the TV screen as a commercial for some cooking gadget played. “I’ve got Christopher. I can’t leave him by himself.”

“He’s at his playgroup, right? So why don’t you take some time for yourself and  _ go outside _ .”

Once his mother’s words had sunk in and he realized that she was right -- that while Christopher was gone, Eddie could pretty much do whatever he liked for those sixty minutes, he decides to take the advice and go outside.

Which is how he ends up at the park, eating a sandwich he picked up from a deli on the drive over. He rips up some of the bread and tosses it to the ducks in the pond at the edge of the park. He’ll play on his phone or he’ll people-watching, just taking those sixty minutes that he has to himself to just  _ breathe _ and  _ relax _ . 

Sometimes, he just eats his lunch at the park, but when he gets bored of sitting around he’ll wander the area and take a short walk. He snaps pictures of flowers and the birds that live in the trees to show to Christopher. When he spots a bunch of runners running the loop around the park, it sparks something in him, and he wants to join. So, he does the responsible and adult thing to do and asks if he can tag along. 

The runners allow him into their small group, some of which are parents themselves, and some who are just there for the exercise. 

After those sixty-minutes, he goes to pick up Christopher, and Eddie will either come to pick-up in sneakers and shorts, with a layer of sweat on his skin, his muscles aching from a run he just ran, or he’ll be clad in his usual jeans and t-shirt with a styrofoam container in hand with a sandwich for his son.

On the days Christopher comes home from playgroup, Eddie finally has something interesting to share with his kid, and he’s excited that he gets to add to the conversation instead of just listening.

Eddie likes this new routine he’s found for himself and the freedom it gives him.

He no longer feels trapped in the house, bored out of his mind while he waits to pick up his son. He doesn’t just feel like a machine, with the way he used to spend his free time doing chores and doing everything for Christopher and having nothing to himself. It’s nice.

For the first time in a long time, he actually feels like a person.

Plus, it seems to have the added effect of making Christopher smile, so Eddie’s happy.

(But, apparently, in Eddie’s life, nothing can stay good for long.)

**XIII.**

Whenever Shannon calls, which seem to be getting fewer these days, Eddie tells her about his day. They aren’t fighting as much as they had been, but the calls remain short. 

“That’s great, Eddie,” she tells him when he explains about his new routine and how well things are going for him and Christopher. “I’m happy for you.”

There’s something about her tone that suddenly has him on edge, while worry gnaws at his gut like a bunch of hungry piranhas. His wife sounds tired, unhappy, and Eddie feels instantly ashamed for having bragged about his fantastic week.

“Shan?” He says, chewing on his lip nervously. “Are you okay? What’s wrong.”

It’s then that he hears it -- her sniffling. He had heard her moving around in the background before, making weird noises, but had just written them off as her breathing. 

“It’s nothing,” she says, voice shaky.

“Doesn’t like nothing.”

She signs. “...It’s just been a long week, is all. I’m happy for you and Chris, though. Sounds like things are going good for you two.”

“They are,” he tells her, trying to reassure her but it seems to have the opposite effect because she starts crying, her sobs crackling through the speaker so loudly that Eddie has to hold the phone away from his ear. “...Shan, baby, what’s wrong?”

Shannon doesn’t answer right away, her cries still ratting from the phone, and all Eddie can do is sit there helplessly and listen to his wife as she breaks down. It takes a few minutes before she speaks again.

“It’s nothing, Eddie,” she promises, but he doesn’t believe her. “I swear. It’s just been a little rough with mom lately and I guess it just...got to me, is all.”

“Shan--” he tries, but she cuts him.

“I’m sorry, Eddie, but I’ve got to go.”

And before he can even open his mouth, Shannon hangs up, and the line goes dead.

Eddie pulls the phone away from his ear, stares at it, confused. 

When he punches in his wife’s number again, the lines rings, and rings, _and rings_. But she doesn’t answer. He tries again, for the second time, but gets the same result. 

He rubs a hand through his hair, pulling on the slowly growing strands and sighs.

“ _ Fuck. _ ”

**XIIII.**

After that, whenever Eddie phones her, Shannon doesn’t pick up. He leaves voicemails and text messages, and while he sees that she reads them, she never replies. It starts with him begging her to call him back and goes on like that for a couple of days, but eventually, he grows weary and just asks her to at least let him know she’s alive.

But again, no answer.

He decides after a week has gone by when he realizes that Shannon doesn’t want to talk to him, then she should, at the very least, talk to her son. 

Besides being annoyed and angry, Eddie’s just worried about his wife.

Eddie’s frustration grows the longer he doesn’t hear back from her. When Christopher asks why he can’t talk to his mother, Eddie doesn’t know what to tell him. He’s already used all the excuses he could think of as to why Chris’s mother isn’t phoning him back.

It ranged from,  _ “Oh, her phone stopped working,” _ to,  _ “Mommy’s busy right now and can’t come to the phone.” _

How do you explain to your son that his mother doesn’t want to speak to him?

Eddie doesn’t tell his family about Shannon, keeping it to himself and hoping Christopher won’t say anything. He doesn’t want to hear what his parents will have to say (he just knows his father’s waiting to tell him ‘I told you so’).

The time when he would usually spend running at the park while Christopher’s at his playgroup turns into time at the gym, where Eddie takes out his irritation on a punching bag, enjoying the way it knocks back from him when his fists collide into the abused leather.

He shows up to pick-up now with his knuckles wrapped, having to go home and submerge them in a bowl filled with ice. Eddie doesn’t mind the painful throb that runs through his hands or how they ache whenever he tries to do anything with them after a work-out session. 

(The pain gives him something to think about, and it’s easier to focus on than the fact that Shannon has disappeared from his and Christopher’s life.)

Christopher asks about his mother from time to time, usually around bedtime, but after a while, he stops altogether. What does happen, however, is that he’ll wake up in the middle of the night, calling out for Shannon, and Eddie with have to run to his room and explain to him that she won’t be coming to him. 

And, well,  _ that’s _ the hardest part. 

When it’s little passed the three-month mark since Shannon’s been gone, Eddie sits Christopher down on the couch. They each have a bowl of ice-cream in their laps, something Eddie had given Christopher to try and distract him for what Eddie has to say.

“Hey, buddy,” he says, setting his bowl on the coffee table. “We need to talk.”

Christopher looks up at him, his big brown eyes are ever so inquisitive. “Talk about what?”

Eddie fiddles with his spoon, stirring his ice-cream around, trying to get the words right in his head before he speaks them out loud.

“It’s about your mom,” he starts slowly, looking Christopher in the eye, and watching as his son goes still. “...She’s…” Eddie pauses, not sure how to say it, “...Well, Chris, the thing is…”

He fumbles over his words, tripping over his tongue. Before he can even say,_ “Hey, Chris, you’re mom’s left us!”_ Christopher has beaten him to the punchline. 

“She’s not coming home, is she?” The boy asks, eyes glazing over with tears. 

Eddie quickly takes the bowl of ice-cream from Christopher’s lap and places it beside his on the coffee table and moves to sit beside him. He wraps his arms around his son, pulling him in for a hug. 

“No, _mijo_,” Eddie says softly, “she isn’t.”

At Eddie’s words, Christopher starts sobbing, his tears wetting Eddie’s shirt. 

Eddie holds Christopher, let’s him cry for however long he needs, rocking them back and forth and whispering sweet nothings in his ear. Looking down at his son, Eddie’s heart breaks and he holds the kid a little tighter.

He can’t believe Shannon would do this. 

When Christopher slowly, but eventually, calms down, he pushes away from his father.

His eyes burned with hatred and betrayal as he looks up at Eddie.

“You --”  _ hiccup _ “-- lied to me.”

“Chris,” Eddie tries but Christopher shakes his head, brown curls bouncing.

“ _ No! _ ” He shouts as he climbs off the couch. “You _lied!_ You said mommy was coming home!”

“ _ Christopher -- _ ”

“ _ Liar! Liar! Liar! _ ” Christopher shouts as he hastily grabbed his crutches and stumbles his way to his bedroom. Eddie follows after him, and it’s an easy task as Chris isn’t that fast, but it’s hard to watch because his kid is  _ running away _ from him.

Once Christopher is in his bedroom, with Eddie a few inches behind him, the young boy uses all the strength he has to slam the door in Eddie’s face, who stumbles back in shock.

When Eddie regains his footing, he doesn’t try to open the door, knowing it will only make the situation worse. Instead, he gently knocks his knuckles against the wood.

“Chris,  _ mijo _ , let me in.” Eddie pleads, eyes stinging with tears.

“No!” Christopher shouts. “ _ I hate you! Go away! _ ”

Biting his lip, Eddie rests his head against the door and takes a deep breath in.

He tries to hold the tears back, but they fall, anyway. His body shakes from how he sobs, having to bite down on his hand to keep from being heard.

He wants to punch something, he’s that angry, but he refrains from doing so.

Instead, he takes a deep, calming breath as he hears Christopher start throwing things around in his room. From the sounds the objects make when they hit the floor, Eddie guesses it’s probably Chris’s action figures, the easiest thing for him to toss without hurting himself.

With every fiber of his being, Eddie wants to be inside of that room with Christopher. He wants to hold him and tell him how much Eddie loves him, but another part of Eddie wants to also throw things, wants to scream as Christopher is doing now and to let the whole world hear his pain.

He wants everybody to know how screwed over he feels -- about how angry he is, with Shannon, with himself, with hurting his kid without meaning too. 

But Eddie can’t because he’s the adult here. 

So, he counts to ten and thinks happy thoughts. 

(Meditation, Eddie realizes later, is such fucking  _ bullshit _ .)

**XV.**

Between Eddie and Christopher, their foundation begins to splinter. If Eddie had to guess what their relationship would look if it was a house, he wouldn’t say it would be boarded up and condemned (even if that’s how it feels), but there’s definitely some broken windows and something festering, rotting, just beneath the surface. 

When Eddie wakes Christopher up in the mornings, he doesn’t get his usual, cheery, “Morning, daddy!” from his son. Instead, what Eddie receives is stony silence in lieu of their fight, and sometimes a groan. 

Christopher takes to ignoring him during breakfast, but he grumpily accepts Eddie’s assistance when he needs it. 

The boy will walk around the house in his pajamas, not bothering to get dressed and throwing a tantrum whenever Eddie tries to help him put actual clothes on. He doesn’t talk to his father or tell him how his day went when Eddie picks him up from his playgroup. 

It’s later revealed, after two weeks go by, to Eddie from the person in charge at Christopher’s playgroup, that he isn’t even trying to participate in any of the activities anymore.

This information causes Eddie to worry even more so than usual and has his anxiety sky-rocketing.

He takes Christopher to his parent’s house, where he’s more subdued in his behavior, but Helena lets Eddie know that Christopher kept up a conversation with her and she even got him to laugh. At this news, Eddie feels hope lit up in his chest, like a small, fragile flame, and he tries not to get too excited, not wanting to accidentally blow it out.

A couple nights a week, Eddie lets Christopher stay over with his grandparents, as he seems more like his usual chipper self when he’s with them. It seems to be doing Christopher some good, keeping a bit of distance from him as he works through his resentment. Eddie doesn’t stop trying to talk to him; he lets his son know he loves him at almost every opportunity.

And while Christopher doesn’t hug him or sit beside him on the couch during movie nights, he’ll quietly let Eddie know that he still loves his father (which totally doesn’t make Eddie tear up or anything).

Every time Eddie picks his son up from his grandparents, his mother shoots him funny looks and he’s just waiting for the day she asks him what’s been going on between them. But until that dreaded comes, Eddie’s just fine pretending that he doesn’t notice the way she watches him whenever Christopher refuses Eddie’s help or brushes passed him without so much as a glance.

(This doesn’t break Eddie’s heart.)

(Except, it really, _really_ does.)

He’ll keep lying to himself if that’s what Christopher needs. 

He doesn’t mind his son hating him. He can handle it -- knows how to deal with the way Chris lashes out by telling Eddie he’s doing a horrible job when making breakfast or how he rumples his clothes that Eddie had neatly folded into a ball. 

What Eddie can’t handle, however, is the silent treatment. 

It kills him a little bit inside every time Christopher looks away or avoids conversation with Eddie. He wishes for nothing more than for his son to talk to him.

Christopher never tries anything that’s outright malicious because that’s just not how he is, so whenever he throws a tantrum or blatantly ignores Eddie, Eddie doesn’t know if he should punish the boy or not.

Does he take away his toys? 

Does he not let Christopher have dessert on movie nights?

The most Eddie does is put Christopher, if they’ve gotten into another argument, in a time-out. He also makes Christopher eat more greens than usual during dinner.

(Because how exactly do you punish a kid who's already punishing themselves enough as it is?)

The day he’s been fearing comes when he’s out for lunch with his mother while Christopher’s at his playgroup. They're at some little bistro, sipping on rich coffee in too-small cups and eating fancy sandwiches with names that Eddie can’t pronounce. 

He’s taking a bite of his sandwich -- roast beef with swiss cheese -- when he feels his mother looking at him. Glancing up from his plate he finds Helena staring at him, her eyebrows scrunched together in concern.

Eddie may not be a mind reader, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what’s currently running through his mother’s head. 

“ _ ¿Qué? _ ” He questions through a mouth full of bread and meat and immediately, from beneath the table, feels her jab at his leg with her foot. 

“ _ Ow! _ ”

Eddie flinches at the pain that spreads throughout his shin and quickly chews and swallows his food.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Edmundo.” She scolds, sipping on her glass of water. “It’s not good manners and it’s certainly not attractive.”

“Lo siento,” he apologizes, reaching down and rubbing at his leg. “I won’t do it again.”

“Good,” she says, wiping at her lips with a napkin. “Your son has better manners than you...Speaking of which, what’s going on between you two? You know I love that boy, but I can tell that he’s not himself. What’s wrong?”

He knew he was going to have this conversation with her at some point but that doesn’t mean Eddie’s happy about it. Trying to delay the inevitable, he grabs his glass of water and chugs it, buying himself another few moments of peace. 

When the water is gone, Eddie knows he’s screwed. 

Glancing up from where he’s staring at the table, he meets his mother’s gaze. 

_ Well, here it goes… _

And just like ripping off a band-aid, he spits the truth out quickly, “Shannon’s gone and she’s probably not coming back.”

Helena, whose usually very composed, chokes on her spit. “She did  _ what?! _ ”

His mother’s outburst earns a few strange looks from the nearby patrons at neighboring tables and he waves his hand, reassuring them that everything’s fine (and would they please stop looking at him like that?), even shooting them an awkward smile before turning back to his mother.

“She left,” he repeats, not being able to hide the bitterness out of his voice. “And she’s not coming back.”

Deciding if he’s going to tell her that, then he should probably tell her everything else that’s been going, so Eddie does. He quickly explains to her about what’s been going on the past three months with Shannon -- the fights, the hang-ups, the no-calling. He tells her all of it, laying the truth on the table (so to speak).

After he’s done, Helena just stares at him for a moment, processing the information.

“Oh,” she says eventually, voice quiet, as she takes a slow sip of her coffee. “...That explains a lot. Thank you for sharing it with me.”

Eddie nods. “Of course.”

They both turn their eyes to the table, fidgeting for whatever they can get their hands on -- for Helena, it’s her coffee cup, for Eddie it’s the lace trim of the table-cloth. Minutes pass where neither says anything, the air becoming thick with tension. 

The longer the silence holds, the more awkward it becomes. 

It’s only broken when a waiter comes over to see if they would like refills. Eddie doesn’t take them up on the offer, but Helena doesn’t waste a second thought about getting more coffee into her cup. 

The poor guy hurries out of there, probably sensing the tense atmosphere around them and leaving them alone.

“I’m sorry for not telling you sooner,” Eddie says, the words tumbling out of his mouth without his permission. He doesn’t know why he’s apologizing, just feeling like he needs too. “...I know I should have done it earlier...but I just needed to time to figure it all out.”

His mother flashes him a comforting smile.

“I understand,” she tells him, reaching across the table and grabbing his hand. “While I do wish you would’ve told me all of this sooner, I get why you didn’t. It is a lot.”

“Thanks,” he replies sheepishly, feeling the tips of his start to burn. 

“Hey,” she says, “you have nothing to be embarrassed about. This is a lot to handle, and you’re doing the best you can.”

Eddie gives her a disbelieving look. “Am I though? What about having my wife leave me and my son hating me says I’m doing the best I can?”

“Because, _ mijo _ ,” Helena takes both her hands and cups his cheeks, “You haven’t given up yet. You’re still here.”

Eddie bites his lip.

“Shannon left. What’s to say I won’t?”

Helena gives him a pointed look. 

“Do you love Christopher?” She asks, gripping at his chin.

How could she ask him that?

“Of course I do!”

“Enough to stay, even though it’s hard?” 

His mother’s question makes Eddie pause. 

He goes quiet for a moment as he thinks, going over the last three months, and his time with Christopher. Eddie thinks about the hardships he faced with coming back from tour -- of figuring out how to be a good father, a good husband, a good civilian. He knows, without a doubt, that he failed Shannon, and in some ways, Eddie's also failed Christopher. 

He hasn’t been there for him, for his son, and his mind wanders over all the things he’s discovered about Christopher. How he likes his eggs scrambled; that’s his favorite movie (currently) is Paddington and how he always laughs whenever it’s on; that he loves when Eddie reads him a few pages of a Superman comic before bed.

Eddie has learned all these new things about his child that he hadn’t before. At least not over rushed, static-y Skype calls or from hand-drawn pictures that Christopher had made him.

But the number one thing that Eddie has learned about his son is that he never gives up. 

Despite all the challenges that Christopher goes through on a daily basis, he keeps going. He doesn’t let his lack of movement stop him from getting to where he wants to be. If he falls, he gets back up. Scraped knee be damned. 

Christopher is a fighter, who every day, continues to wake up and find the good side to things. 

Who, for almost the past five years, never gave up hope that his father would return to him.

Even when Christopher is drowning in pain, Eddie’s seen him keep himself afloat. 

_ He just keeps swimming. _

If there’s one thing Eddie’s certain of, it’s that if Christopher hasn’t given up yet, then Eddie can’t. 

He  _ won’t. _

“I love him enough to stay,” he explains to his mother, voice firm and confident. “I love him enough to keep trying and figure it out.”

Helena gives him a wet smile and presses a kiss to his forehead.

Eddie knows in his heart that he’s made the right choice. 

That he can’t keep running away. 

This time, he’s staying. And Christopher -- well, he’s stuck with Eddie.

**XVI.**

When Eddie picks Christopher up from Playgroup that afternoon, his son is still presenting a silent front whenever he’s around his father. Rather than taking them both home, Eddie decides to take a detour and drives them to the park they frequent. 

He gets a curious look from Christopher, whose confused by the sudden change in routine, but besides a quirk of an eyebrow, the kid doesn’t say anything. 

His son remains silent until he realizes where they're going. 

“The park?” 

Eddie nods. “Yeah...I thought we could use a change of pass.”

“But why?” Christopher asks just as Eddie pulls into the parking lot.

Putting the car into _park_ once he has it in a stall, he turns to face the boy. 

“Because, I want us to spend some time together,” he tells Christopher, whose face immediately scrunches up at the idea. Eddie laughs at his expression but grows serious after a second. Reaching over the console and into the backseat, he grabs onto Christopher’s hand. 

“...I know you don’t like the idea of being around me right now, buddy. But whether you like it or not, you’re stuck with me. You understand? So, you can fight me and hate me all you want, but I’m going to keep loving you.”

At Eddie’s words, he watches Christopher squirm in his car seat, wiggling his butt. He brings his free hand, the one Eddie isn’t holding onto, to wipe at his eyes. 

“Daddy’s really staying?” He sniffles, lips pursed cutely.

“Yeah,” Eddie huffs, squeezing Chris’s hand. “I’m staying.”

(That weekend, Eddie’s hand in his resignation letter to the army. 

It’s quite possibly one of the easiest decisions he’s ever made.)

**XVII.**

(Of course, there’s red tape he’s got to go through after he handed in his resignation letter, and as frustrating as it is to deal with, Eddie can’t find it within himself to care.)

Christopher and he find a new normal after that.

While Christopher still misses Shannon, something Eddie doesn’t fault him for, he’s no longer ignoring Eddie. On some nights, which become rarer after a few weeks, Christopher still calls out for his mother. But at some point, a sleep-dazed Christopher, in the middle of a night-terror must realize that Eddie’s here because he begins to call for his father.

(Eddie’s never been more delighted to be roused from a good night of sleep before in his life.)

Their routine doesn’t change much, but when April descends, Christopher's fifth birthday looms in the near distance. This not only means Eddie has to prepare a party for his son, but he also has to get him ready for kindergarten. 

Even though it’s still only months away, Eddie begins his freak out over this little realization four months in advance. 

Thankfully, however, he has his mother to talk him down from what he’s pretty sure could’ve been classified as either a minor heart-attack or a mental breakdown. He's still not quite sure which one it was.

(She had calmly instructed him to breathe over the phone, and then afterward, once Eddie was no longer frantically pacing and burning a hole in his living room floor, she laughed at him. He can’t say he blamed her, though.)

For Christopher’s birthday, they have it at Eddie’s parents' house. 

Friends and family come over for the special occasion and Chris gets showered in gifts from his relatives. 

Eddie, per-request from the birthday boy, not only decorates the backyard in red and blue streamers or gotten a cake that had his son’s favorite superhero printed on it, but he also dressed like it.

Many pictures were taken of not only Christopher but of Eddie, which he’s pretty sure are going to come back to bite him in the ass. For blackmail purposes or what. 

Christopher was overjoyed on his birthday, content with ripping up tissue paper and playing with his new toys and eating his cake with his hands. But it had been at the end of the day when their back home and Chris has finally crashed from his sugar high, his son had revealed to him what Eddie had already been guessing. 

That he missed his mom.

He had been so exhausted from the events of the day, that Christopher hadn’t even been aware when he told Eddie that the thing he had wished for when he blew out his candles was for Shannon to come home.

Eddie wishes he could make his son’s wish come true, but sadly, he can’t.

When May approaches and Mother's Day comes, Christopher doesn’t come out of his room. Except to go to the bathroom and eat. But other then that, he spends all his time in his bedroom. The next day he comes out, he’s sad and quiet, but he hugs Eddie a little tighter than usual and doesn’t leave his side for the rest of the day.

(And if Eddie finds a discarded, handmade Mother’s Day card in the trash that evening in Christopher’s room and puts in a shoebox that Eddie keeps in his closet, nobody’s the wiser.)

Summer comes and not much new happens, except the weather grows hotter and it makes it impossible to even step outside for even a second without breaking into a sweat. They spend their days inside, where the house is cool from the air-conditioning. But eventually, they both come down with cabin fever, and eventually, both father and son are forced to go out into the world.

Eddie, on a whim, decides they should go to the pool.

He buys Christopher new swim trunks that have little elephants on them and arm floaties. 

Even though Christopher’s not a very good swimmer and can’t go that deep in the water, even in the kiddie pool, he still has fun splashing around and flinging water at Eddie. Even with the ice-cream that they had gotten later that day, that normally would’ve had Christopher bouncing off the walls, Eddie returns home with a sleeping child in his arms. 

It becomes a regular thing they do on the weekends, going to the pool and getting ice cream afterward. It’s a good way to spend time together, and it makes the heat somewhat bearable.

On the Fourth of July, they join in with Eddie’s parent’s annual BBQ. Neighbors, friends, and family all come for the event, and they watch fireworks explode in the sky by sitting on the ground. 

(At some point, however, Eddie has to excuse himself and hand Christopher over to his father. He walks a steady pace to the house, but once he’s inside of it, he sprints for the bathroom. He barely makes in time as vomit surges up in his throat. 

The sound of the fireworks brought back memories of Afghanistan, ones Eddie would’ve happily gone without remembering. 

When he had flushed the toilet and come to stand at the sink, hands moving to go under the stream of water, he sees them covered in blood. 

He’s unable to go outside for the rest of the evening until the fireworks end.)

To support the household, Eddie gets a job at the gym he goes to. It all happens accidentally when the manager overhears Eddie showing a curious young girl how to fend off a would-be attacker. 

He ends up not only becoming a trainer at the gym but a Self-Defense Teacher on the side. 

Christopher joins in on the classes on the days Eddie can’t get a sitter (at least, not a competent one, who understands and knows how to deal with his son’s condition). The men and women alike that Eddie teaches absolutely adore him.

Right before September rolls around, Eddie takes Christopher school-shopping, and the whole thing is honestly a disaster. (It’s one of Christopher’s bad days, where despite whatever Chris does, his body just won’t cooperate.) Papers go flying, pens get broken, and somehow Eddie ends up being hit in the head with a binder.

Eventually, everything gets sorted out, but it doesn’t leave Eddie in a panic or anything.

(It totally does. Who is he kidding?)

On Christopher’s first day of school, Eddie doesn’t know who’s more nervous -- him or Christopher. 

(It’s definitely Eddie.)

He pushes through the anxiety, however, when he sees Christopher in one of the new outfits they got him. A pair of cargo shorts and a white button-up that's adorned with a red bow-tie. On his face, he wore his new glasses, which had a band that wrapped around Chris’s head to keep them attached. 

And, of course, his son’s outfit wouldn’t have been complete without his light-up sneaks.

Eddie couldn’t help it -- he gets a little teary-eyed.

He snapped photo after photo of Christopher, some at home and a few at pre-school.

Sending him off feels so final.

(Somewhere, in the back of his head, Eddie wonders if this is what it felt like when he had left for Afghanistan.)

**XVIII.**

Outside of Christopher, Eddie’s life continues. 

Part of that means moving forward. 

Means that at some point, the inevitable is going to occur. 

It’s in October when it does. 

Eddie’s at the gym, going to town on a punching bag when a woman walks up to him and introduces herself.

“Hey,” he hears a voice call and he pauses, hands going to still but remaining in the air as he casts a glance over his shoulder. He sees a woman, about his age, walking up to him. “You’re really good at that.”

His mind stops working for a second. 

_ How do you talk to people again? _

“Uh, hey,” he says, turning to face her. “Thanks.”

There’s plenty of ways he’s expecting this to go -- for her to ask him about his work-out routine or if he’s available to coach her. What he’s definitely not expecting is for her to ask him out. 

“I just, um, saw you over there,” the woman explains, pointing in the direction of the yoga studio. “I’m Jamie, by the way.”

“Eddie,” he offers, wiping at the sweat that’s collected on his brow with his forearm.

“So,” Jamie begins, and he notices the way her cheeks start to turn pink. “This is kinda weird, but would you like to, I don’t know, get a coffee sometime?”

Her words make him freeze, his body instantly contracting and his brain shutting down.

_ What the hell is he supposed to say to that? _

In the years that he’s been with Shannon, he’s had plenty of people, both men and women, come up to him and ask him out. Usually, though, when they spot the wedding band on his left hand they steer clear. And while Eddie is currently wearing it, his boxing gloves cover the evidence that he’s a married man.

Looking at Jamie, he can see that she’s beautiful. 

Sweaty, but beautiful. Her blonde hair is pulled into a bun at the top of her head and she wears a sports bra and leggings that showcase her very athletic body. Under the fluorescent lighting, her blue eyes shine and Eddie thinks that if this had been seven years ago, he would’ve taken her up on her offer.

But Eddie’s not single. He’s still married. 

Even if his wife has left him, Shannon hasn’t sent him any divorce papers. 

(He isn’t naive enough to think it’s because she doesn’t want to stay married to him. She just doesn’t want him to know where she is.)

His ring, however, sits like a heavy weight on his hand. It tickles and feels like a lie.

Are you even truly married if your spouse doesn’t want you anymore? 

It’s all too difficult to explain his situation, especially to a stranger -- especially when Eddie doesn’t know how to explain it to himself. And if it doesn’t make sense to him, how is it going to make sense to someone he just met?

Those blue eyes are begging him to say yes, but Eddie doesn’t give in.

“I’m sorry,” he tells Jamie at last. “I can’t.”

“Oh,” she says, the hope draining from her face, her cheeks burning brighter than before. “It’s okay...It’s fine. Can I at least ask why?”

_ Because I’m married, _ he wants to say.  _ Because my wife is miles away from me, except we’re not really together anymore but it’s just so confusing. _

Instead, Eddie settles with something easier.

“I have a son.”

At those four words, Jamie is immediately backing out of his space.

“Cool,” she tells him, but he doesn’t miss the relief in her eyes. “I’m just...going to go.”

Eddie just rolls his eyes at Jamie’s retreating form.

He definitely dodged a bullet there with her.

Turning back to the punching bag, he gets into position and swings his arm.

(Eddie won’t remember this moment, so he won't be able to see in the irony when, in about three years, he’ll meet another blonde that has devilishly good looks and tempting blue eyes that he would risk drowning in.

Eyes that would have Eddie saying, _yes yes yes_.

But for now, though, his attention is on the punching bag.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I can practically hear you all screaming at me. Please put down the pitchforks. I know I said that Buddie would meet in the chapter, but it didn't work out like that. But come on, ya'll! It's a slooow burn. And it wouldn't be a true slow burn if it didn't make you want to tear your hair out the beginning. But I promise it's worth it! 
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @dazzling-jester (Tumblr has me on restricted because I dare to reblog things that have to do with female-presenting nipples and stretch marks positivity posts) Feel free to yell at me there or in the comments below! I enjoy them very much!
> 
> [If you got this far, I don't know what time it is, but here's a reminder to: take your meds, get up and stretch (if you can), go to sleep if it's late (I promise this fic will still be here when you get back). Take care of yourself!


	4. Moving Forward (can feel a lot like a chore)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thank you for all the support! It means the world! Enjoy!

**Eddie**

**XVIII.**

Moving on, for the Diaz household, is a slow process. But eventually, as life continues forward, so does the progress of moving from Shannon.

For Christopher, it’s harder. The young boy misses his mother dearly, still calling out her name in his sleep on some nights, and the mere mention of her brings a frown to his face. But with the added reassurance that Eddie’s gives him, letting the kid know at every available opportunity that he’s not going anywhere, that Christopher still (and always will) have his father, it gets a little easier.

With Eddie, the process of moving on isn’t as difficult. Maybe it’s from all the time he spent overseas and he’s gotten so used to not having his wife around him for long periods of time, but as the months pass and they come into a new year, Eddie doesn’t feel as sad as he had expected to feel at the lack of Shannon’s presence. 

Of course, Eddie still cares for her. You have a kid with somebody and marry them and not care about their well-being, but whenever Eddie thinks of Shannon, he’s always left feeling bitter and annoyed. He still can’t believe that she just ran away from her own family -- how she could be  _ so selfish _ to abandon her child.

(Eddie makes sure he doesn’t think about Shannon, if ever. Whenever he does, it leads to him wanting to punch his hand through a wall.)

So, life. It goes on.

In January, Eddie begins his spring cleaning early and begins boxing up Shannon’s stuff. He takes the clothes she hadn’t taken with her (everything that she hadn’t been able to fit in her suitcase) and shoves it all into garbage bags and donates the items to a local goodwill. Just all of it. Her shoes, her clothes, her jewelry. He decides if it hadn’t been important enough to take with her when she left, it isn’t important enough for him to care to keep. A few books even get thrown into the mix.

There are things that Eddie discovers he can’t throw away, like an antique vase that Shannon’s mother had gifted them as a wedding present and an old, fancy china set that’s delicate and brittle and gives Eddie heart palpitations just looking at it. 

Not knowing what to do with these things, he boxes them up and gets a storage unit, where they’ll stay, safe and sound, collecting dust and somewhere where he doesn’t have to care for them.

(Their wedding album sneaks itself in there.)

Eddie keeps the family albums, the ones that include photos of him, Shannon, and Christopher. They stay on a shelf in the living room, near the TV, close the floor for easy access for Christopher so whenever he wants to look at them, he can without too much trouble. 

(Eddie never looks at them, unless it’s too look at Christopher as a baby and a few other moments of his son’s growth from newborn to a toddler to the young child Chris is now that he missed by being in Afghanistan.)

All pictures of Shannon, that used to be kept in plain view like on the mantle or the walls, get removed. Eddie does, however, put a picture of her into a nice frame for Christopher to keep on the nightstand next to his bed to see every day. It seems to bring both happiness and sadness to the boy, but Christopher never asks him to get rid of it, so Eddie figures it’s alright.

New photos are put in place of the old ones -- like pictures of Christopher and Eddie on Fourth of July; of them at Chris’s birthday party (excluding any that have Eddie in that horrible Superman costume); Christopher on his first of kindergarten. There are plenty of them that get spread throughout the house, and not just of the two of them, but also of their family.

Eddie particularly enjoys the photos from Halloween, of him and Christopher dressed in their costumes, holding their bags of candy. Eddie’s mother, Helena, had taken the picture. It’s placed on the mantle, front and center for everyone who comes into the house to see when they first come in. 

Being that it’s the first Halloween that Eddie’s gotten to enjoy with his son, he couldn't be prouder of having it on display.

He and Christopher spend Winter Break watching Hallmark Christmas movies and eating homemade gingerbread men cookies they made together. Christopher enjoys using his free time to play with the Lego set Eddie had gotten him, and although the kid doesn’t really build anything functional with the pieces, he seems to have fun just sticking parts together and forming weird shapes. 

(Eddie keeps the little figure Christopher makes him on the nightstand in his bedroom, next to his alarm clock. He doesn’t know what it’s supposed to be, but it kind of resembles a person. Sorta.

Kinda. 

Okay, maybe it's just a hunk of plastic, but it's definitely _something_. Which Eddie cherishes very deeply.)

Once it’s over and Christopher’s back at school, things wind down a bit. Mostly because Christopher isn’t constantly on a sugar high from all the delectable Christmas treats.

But just as Eddie seems to be able to take a breather from all the holiday hysteria, January passes and they enter into February and Valentine’s Day looms closer. All the shiny tinsel and mistletoe that decorate his home and his workplace get replaced with paper cutouts of hearts and little baby cupids that get stuck to every surface manageable.

Eddie doesn’t much care about the decorations, thinks their cute. Except for the mistletoe, he’s glad that’s gone. The number of times people in the gym trapped to trap Eddie under an entryway with them left him with resentment towards the trinket.

Eddie has no problem with the decoration, but the holiday itself? 

Well, he’d more than happy for it to never exist.

For Eddie, Valentine’s Day was a stupid holiday, endorsed by card manufacturers and candy factories that all wanted money. It’s cheesy and dumb. 

Honestly, he’s never understood the interest in it. 

While getting your partner roses and gifts were great, why wasn’t that the rule for the whole year? Shouldn’t you get the people you love something nice every once and while? What about February 14th suddenly screamed  _ LOVE _ ?

Shannon had loved Valentine’s Day, and for her sake, Eddie had tolerated it. Gotten her cards and gifted her with chocolates when he could, when he hadn't been overseas. He missed a lot of things with her, and that included Valentine’s Day.

(That’s another thing Eddie tries not to think about; the fact that he was a terrible husband and failed as a spouse. It does nothing but give him a bad stomach ache and make the nightmares more prominent during the night.)

When the dreaded Day finally arrives Eddie’s at the gym, just finishing up one of his self-defense classes, when he receives his first Valentine’s Card of the day.

“Good job, everybody!” He tells the group of students before him, all spread throughout the room, clapping. “Seeing some really great progress from all of you!”

“Thanks, Eddie!” Comes a cheerful, yet exhausted reply, spoken from the mouths of a few people in the group. 

He smiles and waves them off. “Just doing my job. See you guys next week!”

It’s as people start filtering out of the room and picking up their work-out gear, and Eddie’s just grabbing a quick drink from his water bottle, he feels a tug on his shorts. 

Eddie startles just slightly, caught off guard by the unexpected motion. 

Turning around and wiping at his mouth, he comes face-to-face with a little girl and her mother. It takes a second for him to place the name with the face, but once he does, a grin splits across his face.

“Hey,” he speaks softly, glancing down at the girl -- Yasmine, and her mother, who stands behind her, Sonya. “Do guys need help with something?”

Yasmine smiles nervously up at him, hesitant, looking like she wants to say something but doesn’t. Not never a nudge from her mother can get her to move from where she’s hidden behind Sonya’s legs. 

Sighing, Sonya says, “I’m sorry, Mr. Diaz. She’s just very shy.”

“It’s fine,” Eddie reassures the woman. “And please, Sonya, it’s Eddie.”

“Of course, my apologies.” She flashes him a small, reverent smile, which she turns to her daughter and gives her another gentle poke. 

“ _ دبدوب _ ,” Sonya speaks, in a foreign tongue that Eddie doesn’t understand, but guesses from her soft, affectionate tone that it must be some term of endearment. “Don’t you want to show Mr. Diaz -- sorry,  _ Eddie _ \-- what you made him?”

Yasmine stares at her mother in indecision, but after a moment, she casts her brown gaze onto him. Eddie gives her smile, squatting down so that he’s at her level, and holds out his hands.

“You made me something?” 

The little girl gives him an enthusiastic nod. 

“Can I see it?” He asked, genuinely curious, but doesn’t rush her.

Yasmine looks back up at her mother, who nods encouragingly, and before Eddie can blink he has something shoved in his face. Rearing back slightly, he blinks and stares at the object that’s being held out for him. Gently, he takes it from Yasmine’s small hand and into his much bigger ones and looks down at it. 

It takes him a second to realize that it’s a Valentine’s Card. 

It’s made from red construction paper and copious amounts of glitter. He can’t even be made at the substance, even when he knows that when he goes home it’ll find its way into everything and most likely be around for years to come. Carefully, as to not disturb the giant glitter heart on the front, he opens the card and reads the message that’s been written inside of it in a messy scrawl that only children can manage to create.

_ Thank you, Mr. Eddie, for the laughs and the lollipops. Chris is a nice friend. Happy Valentine’s Day! -- Yasmine _

Joy explodes, like a flurry of butterflies, inside of Eddie’s chest. 

Next to the cards that Christopher has made for him, this is probably one of the sweetest things that Eddie’s ever received. 

“It’s lovely,” he tells Yasmine, “Thank you.”

“Mama helped,” she whispers back. 

Eddie’s not exactly surprised that Sonya had helped her daughter. The spelling was a little too perfect to have written by a five-year-old. Sonya eyes him, an amused glint in her eye, like she knows exactly what he’s thinking, and sharing with the inside joke, he gives her a wink. At this, Sonya’s cheeks go a little pink.

“Oh, she did?” He looks at Sonya, feigning surprise at the news.

“I did nothing,” she insists, waving her hand in a dismissive gesture. “It was all this one here. She did all the hard work.”

“I’m sure,” Eddie says, a grin appearing on his face when Yasmine giggles at him. “You know, I think this is the best card I’ve ever gotten,” he tells the little girl and her eyes widen.

“Really?”

Eddie nods. “ _ Really _ .”

“Do you have any Valentine’s Day plans, Eddie?” Sonya suddenly speaks up, and he glances up at her. 

“No,” he shakes his head, standing up to his full height. “It’s just me and Christopher this year.”

“Ah,” she says, knowingly. “As with Yasmine and myself. Although, I’m surprised to hear that.”

“Oh?” Eddie raises a curious eyebrow. “Why’s that?”

“Well,” Sonya starts sheepishly, her cheeks burning a little darker in embarrassment. “It’s just...you seem like a nice man, is all. I wouldn’t have taken you, a single man, to have somebody to celebrate today with.”

Understanding dawns on him.

“Oh,” he repeats, finally getting it and feeling a little lost for words.

_ A single man, _ Sonya had called him and Eddie wants to laugh.

How can somebody be single if they are still technically married to someone else?

He knows where the mistake must’ve come from -- he’s not wearing his wedding ring. It had been less of a choice to take it off and more of something he’d done out of necessity. Back in October, when Eddie had been at the gym and going at it with the punching bag and had sent a particularly hard swing at it, he had hurt his hand. 

He didn’t know what happened exactly, still doesn’t, but all he knows is that after feeling a pain spread through his arm and taking off the gloves, he’d found his ring finger bruised. After that, he’d taken to not wearing his wedding ring while working out or while he was teaching a class or during a training session and kept the ring in his locker. 

Due to this, he’s had the unfortunate luck of being asked out on dates by the people that come and go in the gym, and like right now, he never knows what to say to any of them. 

Eddie bites down on his tongue, unsure of what to do. But then decides, from one single parent to another, that the secret to why he’s dateless on Valentine’s Day would probably make more sense to someone like Sonya, who he’s sorta become friends with over the past couple of months, then some random person in the gym only looking for a one-night-stand.

She won’t judge him, Eddie knows. 

“It’s complicated,” he begins, glancing down cautiously at Yasmine to make sure she doesn’t over-hear but sees that she’s playing on her mother’s phone, completely ignorant of the world around her. 

Looking back at Sonya, he finds her staring him, and she gives him a nod to continue. 

“Uh...my wife and I...we're separated,” he explains, adding, “Sorta.”

“Sorta?” Sonya’s face becomes scrunched in confusion.

“Yeah,” Eddie huffs, “_Sorta_. Last year, she left Chris and I. Stopped returning my phone calls and just dropped off the grid.”

“That’s awful,” Sonya says, sighing in disbelief. “And you’re not divorced?”

“Nope.”

“Ugh,” she groans, swearing in her mother tongue under her breathe. “...I hope you find peace with that, Eddie, I truly do.”

“Yeah, me too. And not just for me, but for Christopher.”

She nods empathically. “Believe me, Eddie. I understand.”

And well,  _ yeah _ . If anyone would understand, it would be Sonya.

When Sonya had shown up at the gym in November of last year, fresh from an abusive marriage and ready to find a way to protect not only herself but her daughter, both of them had been equally quiet and reserved. Because Sonya couldn’t find a babysitter, she had brought Yasmine along with her to classes, and to help with her daughter’s shyness, Eddie had begun to give the small girl lollipops to help combat the anxiety she felt (the candy given with the permission of her mother’s consent, of course) and even introduced Yasmine to Christopher.

“I don’t doubt you do,” he tells her, glancing over at Yasmine, who sits on the floor, and he’s reminded of his son. “...It’s hard, you know? Trying to find someone who not only gets me but also Christopher. I can’t be with someone who can love me and not my kid. But everyone just seems to be looking for hookups.”

“Maybe you’re just looking in the wrong place,” Sonya supplies, and when Eddie looks back at her, he can see the years that are written into the beautiful brown skin of her face, and the wisdom in her deep chocolate brown eyes. She appears much older than she deserves at only twenty-nine.

“Maybe,” Eddie sighs, doubtful.

Sonya tilts her head at him, giving him a pointed look. “Not maybe,” she tells him. “ _ You are. _ ”

“Okay,” he says, “Let’s say that you’re right. Where exactly am I going to meet this amazing person?”

“Definitely not in some sweaty gym,” she deadpans seriously and Eddie barks out a laugh. 

“Okay,” he chuckles, knowing she’s right, “You got me there. But really, where?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know, but I can tell you it’s not going to be here. Maybe try a coffee shop or the library?”

“That’s helpful,” he groans, eyes going skyward. “So, someday, I’m going to meet this mythical person over a double-espresso or at the book returns.  _ Lovely. _ ”

Sonya pats him on the shoulder. “Hang in there, my friend. The right person is out there somewhere.”

“I know,” he tells her. “The question is: How do I find them?”

At his words, Sonya gives him a funny look.

“What?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing,” she says, “I just realized your biggest mistake. You don’t find love, dumb-dumb, you make it.”

“Make it?” Eddie eyes Sonya like she’s suddenly grown two heads.

“Yes,” Sonya states, matter-of-fact. “ _ You - make - it. _ You fight for it. The bad, the good, _all_ of it -- you find a way to make it work.”

“Okay,” he says slowly, letting her words sink in, considering them. 

He takes a second before he opens his mouth, having one last thing he wants to know.

“How do I know when it’ll be the right person to...'make it' with?”

Sonya stares at him for a moment, having to think, before she asks,

“You can tell when it’s the wrong person, correct?”

Eddie nods.

“Yeah.” Or well, Eddie likes to think he will, when the time comes, if it ever will. But there had been Shannon, and while he’ll be forever grateful to her for giving him Christopher, she obviously hadn’t been the right person for him. 

“Well then, you’ll know when it’s the right person.”

“How?”

“Because,” Sonya says as places her hand on his chest, where his heart beats a steady rhythm below layers of tissue and muscle. “It’ll feel right in here. Like everything just..._belongs_.”

And Eddie...well, Eddie just hopes she’s right.

(While he still firmly believes that Valentine’s Day is a hoax, Eddie learns not to completely despise the holiday. At least, not when looks at the card Yasmine had given him, or the card he receives from Christopher when he picks him up, along with the picture that his son drew of the two of them.

It gives him a little hope, that maybe, just maybe, this whole ‘love’ thing isn’t a complete waste of Eddie’s time.)

**XIX.**

That whole believing in love thing dies out pretty quickly for Eddie. Two months after his conversation with Sonya, Eddie’s mother corners him at dinner when he and Christopher are over at his parent’s house for supper and asks him, without any tact,

“So when are you going to start seeing people?”

At his mother’s words, Eddie promptly chokes, the piece of father’s homemade tamales getting stuck in his throat. His eyes tear up and through blurry vision Eddie just barely manages to grab the glass of water someone hands him and chugs it back, washing down the food in his mouth.

Blinking away the tears, he takes heaving gulps of air, his gaze darting back and forth between his parents. 

A moment of silence passed as he catches his breath, but eventually, Eddie finds his voice.

“ _ What?! _ ” He croaks out, throat still aching. 

He needs to make sure he heard them right, even if all he’s hoping for is that he’s wrong.

_ Oh, please God, if you’re really out there tell me I’m going deaf. _

“We want to know if you’re going to start dating,” his mother, Helena, tells him and Eddie groans, glaring at the ceiling.

“Why does it matter if I’m dating or not?” He asks grumpily, shooting a quick glance into the living room, where Christopher sits on the couch, hoping his son can’t hear the conversation that’s happening in the dining room, only meters between them. But thankfully, Chris's attention is hyper-focused on the TV in front of him, completely enthralled with the movie he’s watching and Eddie lets himself relax. 

He doesn’t need Christopher overhearing this.

“We’re just curious,” his mother says defensively.

“And worried,” his father, Ramon, adds. 

Eddie quirks an eyebrow at them. “Worried about what?”

“You,” Helena admits, waving a hand at him. “I mean, you haven’t exactly been yourself, Edmundo. Your hair has grown to your shoulders and you’ve been working constantly -- I think this is the first time in almost a month that we’ve seen you besides when you come to pick Christopher up from a sleepover.”

He doesn’t want to admit it, but the first thought that pops into his head that he wants to ask is  _ What’s wrong with my hair? _ but goes with the second, which is, “And what, exactly? You think if I got out on a date I’m magically going to cut my hair and stop working as much?” Eddie laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Newsflash,  _ ma _ , but it  _ won’t _ . And I need the money. You know, for these things called bills.”

Belatedly, Eddie realizes how sharp and snappy his tone had been when talking to his mother, and reels back when his father’s hand comes down on the table.

“Edmundo,” his father scolds, “Watch your tongue!”

It’s only due to Eddie’s army training that he doesn’t flinch at the harshness of his father’s voice. 

“I’m sorry,” Eddie tells his mother, and then, to his father he promises, “It won’t happen again.”

Ramon stares him down, but Eddie doesn’t let the older man scare him. 

(At least, that’s what he tells himself.)

Instead, he holds his father’s gaze. A moment later, Ramon breaks it, seeming satisfied.

“Good,” he nods, and the words  _ ‘it better not’ _ go unspoken, but Eddie hears them ringing in his ears all the same.

“We just want you to be alright, _ mijo _ ,” Helena speaks up, her voice apologetic and tears welling in her eyes. Reaching over the table, Eddie grabs his mother’s hand, giving it a comforting squeeze.

“I’m fine,” he tells her, and it’s true. He is. 

Well, for the most part.

“I just don’t want you to be lonely!” she cries and suddenly, Eddie’s being hauled into a hug. His mother’s arms wrap around him, holding his tightly, and the oxygen in his lungs is knocked out of him.

“I am,” he says, rubbing her back reassuringly for a moment, letting her cry into his shoulder before trying to pull back. 

“ _ Ma _ ,” he tries, gasping around the words, “ _ can’t - breathe. _ ”

“Oh!” Helena lets him go and Eddie falls back in his seat, coughing. “ _ ¿Estás bien, hija mía? _ ”

Eddie nods. “Yeah,” he huffs, “I’m great.”

She cups at his cheeks, and he smiles at her.

“I swear, I’m fine.”

His mother stares at him for a moment, racking him over with her eyes before sitting back down in her chair. 

“I think,” Ramon starts, taking a sip of his beer, “what your mother is trying to say is that it’s been a year since Shannon left and she wants to know if you’ve moved on or are planning too.” His father glances over at his wife for confirmation, and she nods. “See? We just want to be happy, Eddie. To have someone.”

“I am happy,” Eddie explains to them, adding when they each send him a skeptical look, “I’m also just enjoying being alone right now, okay? It’s been nice, having it just be me and Christopher. I don’t see why I need to add someone new to the mix.”

“But don’t you ever get lonely?” Helena questions, eyebrows scrunched in concern.

And, well, _yeah_. Eddie does get lonely.

But only very rarely.

There are days when he sees a happy couple at the park when he’s out with Christopher and the two people are having a conversation, staring at each other all doe-eyed and holding hands and for a second Eddie will think,  _ that’s nice _ and  _ how cute _ , like how one would refer to a dog, but the thoughts never linger. 

Right now, when Eddie goes to sleep, the bed doesn’t seem impossibly empty like it had when Shannon had first left.

He goes to the movies alone, and enjoys the fact that he doesn’t have to make sure to save another seat or when he gets take-out the only opinion that matters is his own (or Christopher’s if he’s also getting something). There’s nobody to bicker with over which movie to watch because Eddie can just pick whatever. 

Eddie doesn’t have to worry about a lot of things now -- like deciding on what to do for date night or keeping track of somebody else’s life. He’s already got so much going on at home, between what his own needs and Christopher’s, that the idea, the very notion of having to go through the hassle of doing that with someone else that isn’t himself or his kid just seems like a chore.

Besides, Eddie’s just beginning to figure out how to be a good father. 

Adding on top of all that with the stress of figuring out how to be a good partner? 

_ Yeah, okay. _ It’s just time he doesn’t have and anxiety he doesn’t need.

The only time Eddie ever truly feels the connotation of lonely is on the nights when he’s all worked up, trying to scratch that particular itch, of soothing the ache between his legs, and he wishes that his hands were somebody else's. 

And sometimes, he imagines it to be true -- of another person in the room, hands skimming his thighs, lips kissing a trail down his torso, tongue licking across his cock. He’ll close his eyes and imagine that his hands are not his, but someone else’s, that the hands squeezing his balls are a stranger’s.

He comes to that idea often, with his eyes fluttering open at the end of it with his hand and chest covered in white ropes of his pleasure.

That’s the only time he honestly feels even a little bit lonely.

(And it’s not like he would beg to have somebody else in his bed with him on those nights, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a particular hunger within him that would deny the idea of it.)

But, for obvious reasons, he’s not going to tell his parents that part.

“Sure,” he settles on, leaning back in his chair and grabbing his bottle of beer off the table. “But things are good in my life -- like they  _ finally _ just got good again. And I really,  _ really _ don’t want to mess it all up just because I got a little lonely. So, please, can you both just drop it?”

His parents share a look but then they glance back at Eddie and sigh.

“For you,  _ mijo _ ,” his mother says, “Of course.”

Despite her kind smile and the genuinity of her words, Eddie doesn’t believe her for a second.

**XX.**

Eddie’s glad that he hadn’t taken his mother at her word because when she approaches him two weeks later, trying to be subtle but failing miserably at it when she asks if she’d like to meet one of her friends’ daughter for lunch, he’s not surprised. 

“You want me to do what now?” He has asked, a little befuddled, but not shocked at the request.

“Please, Eddie,” she had begged him. “Just do this one little thing for me, please. It would make me stop worrying about you.”

Eddie had sighed, not being able to stand it when she used that pleading tone with him.

“Okay,” he had told her, “but just this once.”

And so he had gone, put on his nice jeans and a casual white t-shirt and a flannel that he tied around his hips and gone to lunch with this strange woman. 

It had been nice. They got coffee and lunch burritos, ate them at a picnic bench and discussed their interests. Eddie had, admittedly, enjoyed himself. He liked having someone his age to talk and go out on a meal with.

(Okay, so maybe he missed a few things about having someone. 

But that didn’t mean he was lonely.

It just _didn't_.) 

But the real test came when he showed the woman, Gabriella, a picture of Christopher. 

She had said she loved kids, wanted some children of her own one day, so when Eddie revealed he had a son, Gabriella hadn’t been shy about wanting to see a photo of him.

Eddie had dug his phone from his pocket, fiddled around with until he came upon his camera roll, scrolled through a series of pictures until he landed on one of Christopher.

When Gabriella had first seen his son, she had cooed.

“Aw,” she had said, practically stroking at his phone screen. “He’s just so adorable. How old is he?”

“Five,” he had told her, “Coming up six.”

“And his mother’s not in the picture?”

“Nope.”

“What a shame,” Gabriella had frowned. “Not having his mother around must suck. It just -- hey, can I ask you a question?”

All Eddie had done was nod and gestured for her to continue.

“Why is Christopher using crutches? Did he sprained his ankle?”

When Gabriella had said that, Eddie had wanted to laugh.

_ Had Christopher sprained his ankle? _ It was funny, except that it wasn’t.

“No,” Eddie had said, “Chris has CP.”

“Oh, what’s that mean?”

“‘CP’ stands for cerebral palsy,” Eddie had explained. “It’s a condition caused by a birth defect. During labor, he got stuck in the birthing canal.”

“Oh,” Gabriella had whined sadly, “That’s horrible! He must lead a painful life.”

Her voice had been filled with sorrow and something else that always caused a sour taste in Eddie’s mouth when people spoke about his kid --  _ pity _ . Plenty of people have taken one look at Christopher and thought he was unhappy, that due to the challenges he faces daily that he couldn’t possibly lead a happy and full life.

They thought he was miserable and unlucky. 

When none of those things could be farther from the truth.

It was at that moment that Eddie had learned something about himself and what he doesn’t want in a potential partner and that's their pity. If Eddie ever has a partner, he doesn’t want them to ever see Christopher as someone to feel sorry for.

“Actually,” he had said, stuffing his phone back in his pocket and standing from the table, “Christopher leads a _very_ happy and joyful life. I need to go.”

After that horrible date, Eddie doesn’t take his mother up on her requests about any other dates she might have set up for him.

He tells her to quit it and when she continues to despite his protests, he takes to ignoring her.

**XXI.**

It’s after Christopher’s sixth birthday has passed that Eddie tries the whole dating thing again. 

Except for this time, he goes to Sonya.

When he asks for her help, she accepts, but only if he’ll tell her what changed his mind.

So, he tells what happened with Gabriella, and after going over it for a while, has decided that it’s time to give it a try -- but  _ his _ way this time.

And Sonya? 

She laughs at him, hunched over and almost drops the weights she’s holding down on his foot. When she had finally calmed down, she’s heaving in breaths, eyes glistening with tears.

“I’m sorry, Eddie,” she had apologized. “It’s horrible, I know. But did you really think it was going to turn out well?”

All he had done in response was shrugged. “I honestly didn’t know what to think.”

So, together, he and Sonya game plan. 

If he gets asked out anyone at the gym and finds them interesting enough, Eddie will say yes. But it’s not just the gym that he gets potential prospects from, but also when he’s at the park with Christopher and a fellow single parent, a mother, will come up to him and spark up a conversation. Or at the library when he goes to drop off his son’s books or at the coffee shop he frequents. 

Sonya even makes him an online dating profile.

So, from there, Eddie finds himself going on various dates with various women. Most of the time, it never goes past a first date, but on the rare few, that he feels a lingering fascination with, he and the woman he’s currently interested in will go on a second date.

Even rarer, he’ll even go on a third. But most of the time, that never happens.

Always halfway through the first or second date, Eddie will begin to lose interest and that particular want to _discover_. 

So, despite his best efforts, and Sonya’s help, Eddie begins to lose all hope.

“Do you think there’s something wrong with me?” He once asked Sonya while he spotted her, hands hovering just beneath the metal bar she was lifting. 

She had paused and taken a quick moment to assess him. Then, she had told him with absolute confidence, “_No_. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re perfectly okay as you are, Eddie. Now, put more weights on this, please.”

And who was Eddie to deny her?

Life continues and so do the dates, but they soon start to dwindle. Before he knows it, it’s May, and so much time has passed and there’s so many dates and women that honestly, Eddie starts to lose his mind a little.

(And by ‘a little’, he means ‘a lot’.)

How can someone be so horrible at dating?

Or, to be more specific, how can someone going on copious amounts of dates with various intelligent, strong, and beautiful women not want to be with them? 

How can Eddie?

It’s a question that haunts him and leaves him feeling like he’s free-falling without a parachute.

For that particular reason, he decides to quit dating. 

When Sonya asks, all he tells her is, “I just need a little break. I’ve met too many  _ Britneys _ this month.”

(He pretends that he didn’t notice the weird look Sonya had given him. Pretends that it doesn’t mean anything. 

Pretends that everything’s fine. 

That he’s fine.)

Eddie searches for the answer to his questions but doesn’t find anything that helps.

But somebody, apparently, is out there, listening to his pleads because the answer does come to him. It just comes at the most unexpected places: Christopher’s pre-school.

Eddie had totally thought if he was going to have any sort of revelations, it would be on a walk home, or at church, or lounging on the couch at night watching infomercials. 

Definitely not at a fucking PTA meeting.

He’s just filled up his styrofoam cup with coffee from the jug and is turning around when he runs into someone. His chest connects with something as equally as hard as his own, and when his gaze travels from the person’s t-shirt to their face, he finds himself looking at a man.

A very, very handsome man. 

The man’s dirty brown hair is messily styled with some-type of gel and his blue eyes sparkle under the fluorescent lighting. He’s dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and a motorcycle jacket. Eddie’s eyes wander the man, and he tells himself it’s because there’s squished donut all over the man’s front and no because he’s checking the guy out. 

(No, absolutely not. Why would he do that for?)

“Ugh,” Eddie says a little stupidly, and blindly grabs at the pile of napkins on the snack table and practically launches them at the man. “Here, you got a little something…” Eddie gestures at the mess on the guy’s shirt.

The man laughs, bright and loud, and Eddie really can’t look away. 

Why can’t he look away?

“Thanks,” the man tells him, grinning ear-to-ear, and takes the napkins. 

Eddie’s left to stand there and watch as the man wipes himself clean of the white icing that clings to the material of his clothes, the donut discarded to the floor at their feet along with the plate it had been on. 

“You’re welcome,” Eddie says, trying not to let his mind wander to inappropriate places when he looks at the icing all over the man’s shirt and how it looks like a different but very similar sticky substance that Eddie's well acquainted with.

Eddie has to fight the way the urge to stare at the guy’s mouth when he raises his hand to his mouth to lick the icing off his fingers. 

For a brief moment, Eddie can picture the man’s tongue licking at something else, and panics immediately afterward because he feels his pants begin to get tight.

_ Fuck fuck fuck _ is all he can think at that moment besides the guy’s hands and mouth and those really fucking blue eyes (how are they so blue?) that reminded Eddie of the sky on a cloudless day or of the ocean, when the water is perfectly clear and you see all the way to the bottom. If he stares at them for too long, Eddie bets he could get lost in them and drift away.

Right when the man peers up at him, through his long eyelashes, and Eddie knows he’s so screwed, the principal comes up on stage inside of the auditorium and calls for everyone’s attention.

Eddie’s never been happier to have to discuss topics like  _ hot lunches _ and  _ bakes sales _ even if he has to sit there and give his opinion while being seated on a hard metal fold-up chair while dealing with the worst case of blue balls he’s ever experienced in his life with thirty pairs of eyes on him.

(At his next training session with Sonya, he explains to her what happened, excluding the parts that have to do with him getting an erection, and goes on to tell her about the charming biker dad at the PTA meeting and how, “He had the bluest eyes, Sonya.”

And Sonya, for her part, had been nodding along to his story as she did her squats. But something at his words then had caused her to stop and look at him. 

She had tilted her head to the side and stared at him quizzically before he saw her eyes widen.

“Okay, what is it?” He asked, stopping the timer. 

“Nothing,” she had said, “I just understand why you’re dating life sucks.”

Eddie hadn’t known what to say that, partly because Sonya had gone back to doing her squats, but mostly because Eddie would just like to know what the fuck that was supposed to mean?)

**XXII.**

  
  


Eddie begins to feel a little lost. 

Like he’s just drifting along and watching the world go on around him while he does nothing. He’s simply just a witness.

This goes on for a while. 

(And by ‘a while’, he actually means two years.)

It grows, this feeling of displacement, like Eddie doesn’t belong. It spreads a little each day, like cancer, growing bigger and bigger. The only thing Eddie knows, once he becomes aware of it, is he doesn’t fit. His life feels like one giant puzzle and none of the pieces go together. 

He’s terrified because he doesn’t have an answer. 

All he does have, however, is a catalyst for this horrible feeling in his chest.

When he thinks back on what could’ve caused it, his mind brings him back to a grin and a pair of blue eyes. 

(He tries not to think about the man from the PTA meeting, but sometime after it, his face had been what Eddie’s mind would conjure up whenever he felt that heat begin to grow in his belly and that certain pull in his groin. Eddie pictured the man’s mouth and his hands; saw him in his dreams and the wicked things they did together that had Eddie waking up with his boxers filled with dried cum.)

He doesn’t understand why he panics every time his mother asks him if he’s still dating (he’s not) or if he’s interested in someone (he might be). Eddie brushes off her questions with trained ease, swallowing back the bile that surges up to his throat whenever his father looks at him because all Eddie can think is  _ he knows _ . 

But that’s not possible. 

How could his father possibly know about what Eddie thinks about at night when he’s pleasuring himself? The man doesn’t. 

Eddie knows this.

(But logic doesn’t always win out.)

Every time Eddie’s walking down the street or is watching TV and a relatively handsome man comes on or walks by, Eddie gets a little dizzy with anxiety. 

This goes on for a couple of years, but it finally comes to a head when Eddie’s with Christopher in the car, and it’s June, and the city has gathered for Pride Parade. The streets fill up with people in various states of dress and undress, in colorful costumes, faces painted with different patterns that Eddie vaguely knows that meaning to only a few. 

There’s flags and glitter and music and dancing. 

People march around proudly, strutting passed those holding signs that say  _ ‘God Condemns You’ _ and  _ ‘Being Gay is a Sin’ _ and there’s a lot more, but Eddie doesn’t focus on them, deciding to ignore the hate and the filth coming out of those standing on the sidelines.

What Eddie does focus on, however, is a big rainbow flag that two men wear as a cape on their backs as they walk by, holding hands and giving the homophobes spewing their ignorant garbage the middle finger. 

Eddie smiles at the sight, proud of the display, of the bravery the two men and everyone else in the crowd has. 

He gazes at them in awe. 

When the road clears a path, he drives forward. 

It’s only when he stops at coffee-shop to pick up lunch for him and Christopher and sees another couple, both male by their appearance by Eddie could be wrong, and they are also holding hands and have little rainbow temporary tattoos stuck onto their cheeks that it clicks for him.

He doesn’t get it at first, doesn’t understand the sudden longing that fills his chest; of a prickling feeling in his guts like hunger-pains when he sees the love in both of their faces.

But then all the pieces start to go together when he realizes that he wants what those two have.

And suddenly, Eddie’s no longer confused or terrified.

He’s just a little surprised.

_ He likes dudes.  _

He -- Edmundo Diaz -- is into men.

**XXIII.**

Eddie doesn’t share the fact that he’s into men and how he  _ sorta, kinda, maybe _ wants to touch a dick that isn't his own. He keeps it to himself. It’s not a secret. It’s just not something he feels the need to tell anyone. 

Well, except for Sonya.

“I’m into dudes,” he tells her one day after class, while she’s helping clean up. He doesn’t mean to say it. It just comes tumbling out of his mouth.

She stops what she’s doing and looks at him.

For a second, he fears the worst, expecting some kind of backlash but receives the opposite.

“I knew it,” she whispers, mostly to herself, and then she’s throwing her hands up in the air and yelling in his face, “ _ I knew it! _ ”

He stares at her, stunned. “You...You did?”

“Well, duh. Stupido.”

“But how?”

“How?” Sonya laughs.  “ _ ‘Oh, Sonya _ ,’” she says, her voice deepening into what he assumes is supposed to be an imitation of him. “ _ ‘I met this guy and you wouldn’t believe it -- he had just the prettiest, dreamiest eyes ever! They were so blue. And his mouth, Sonya. He grinned so handsomely, it just made me want to put my dick in his mouth.’ _ ”

Eddie blinks, not quite processing what she’s just said until it hits him. 

He instantly knows what she’s talking about and feels his cheeks begin to burn.

“I do not sound like that!” He squawks, indignant.  _ Had he, though? _

“You do, too!” Sonya laughs. “Two years I’ve been waiting for you to tell me -- for you to _realize_. And here you are!”

He huffs, embarrassed. “...Was I really that obvious?” 

“No. _Well_...not at first. Eventually, I figured it, though.”

“ _ Great _ ,” he says, having to sit down on the blue mats that lay on the floor. Sonya follows him and a seat in front of him, the two of them sitting crossed legged.

“Anything else you liked to share?” Sonya asks and Eddie sighs. 

_ Well, since they are here… _

“I don’t think I want to be in Texas anymore,” he admits slowly, adding, “It doesn’t really feel like home, anymore.”

And it’s true. Texas hasn’t felt home for a while (for years, if Eddie’s being completely honest). It only feels like an empty pit. Besides being with Christopher or having these moments with Sonya, Eddie feels stuck, trapped in a life where he lives in a house he used to share with his wife that left him, constantly reminded of her even though all her stuff is gone, in a city that’s not overly accepting of him or Christopher, and parents that keep wanting something from him he’s going to be able to give.

Eddie feels like an outsider, peering into his own life and he’s sick of it.

More than that, he’s bored.

And the only time he hasn’t felt that way when he felt like he had a purpose, is a couple of days when he had to take a shift at the pool and give lessons. During his shift, a girl had slipped and hit her head on the tile before landing in the pool, and before Eddie could even think, he knew what needed to be done. 

He had quickly excused himself and dove into the water before his class and swam towards the girl. Someone had called 911 at some point but by the time the paramedics had gotten there, the girl had already been retrieved from the pool’s depths, safe and sound in Eddie’s lap, where she was coughing up a storm, spitting out the water she had inhaled. 

Eddie had performed CPR to get to start breathing again and even checked her over. The girl’s hit to the head had caused a concussion, but outside of that, Eddie wasn’t quite sure. He had passed her over to the paramedics and her crying mother when they arrived.

  
For the first time in years, Eddie had felt, well,  _ alive _ .

**XXIV.**

Eddie’s not exactly sure what happens, but after that conversation with Sonya, Eddie knows what he needs to do and that’s to not be in Texas anymore. 

  
When he brings up the idea of moving to Christopher, the boy isn’t too happy, not when it means leaving the house behind and all his friends. But when Eddie calmly explains to him where their going, Christopher seems to grow to the idea, especially if it means he gets to see Eddie’s  _ Abuela _ , Isobel.

When Eddie calls her and tells her the news, she’s ecstatic, like he had guessed she would be. In a flurry of Spanish, she tells him how excited she is to see both and Christopher and for them to be closer. They haven’t seen each other in forever and the phone call leaves Eddie with a pleasant ache in his chest.

Explaining the situation to his parents, however, doesn’t go as well as it had with his  _ Abuela _ . 

There’s arguing and fighting and some glass breaking, and ultimately, they don’t agree with Eddie’s decision. But Eddie doesn’t let it stop him from leaving. 

It takes a couple of weeks to sort everything out -- to quit his job, to pack up all of his and Christopher’s stuff, and picking somewhere to live. Isobel offers to house them while they get on their feet, and Eddie gratefully accepts the offer, while putting the house up for sale and deciding he’ll let his realtor handle the selling of it.

It’s messy and sudden, and there’s some crying and yelling that gets mixed in between all of it from both him and Christopher alike, but when once everything’s sorted (or at least, as sorted as it can get at the moment) and Eddie is sitting on the plane, with Christopher’s head on his shoulder, Eddie finally feels peace.

He knows in his heart that he’s made the right decision. 

When they touch down in Los Angeles, Eddie’s  _ Abuela _ is there, along with his  _ Tia _ Josephine.

They greet him and Christopher at the baggage claim with open arms.

It has Eddie thinking that it can’t get better than this.

That Eddie has everything he needs -- his belongings and his family. 

But then life decides to throw him a curveball and puts Evan Buckley in Eddie’s path.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, ya'll! If you enjoyed it, leave a kudos/comment. They make my day!


	5. Fresh Starts (always have a few bumps in the beginning)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Thanks for all the support! The love this fic has gotten is what keeps me motivated. You're all extremely awesome and terrific! I hope you enjoy the update!

**Eddie**

**XXV.**

The first night at Eddie's_ Abuela’s_ house is one of the longest.

Eddie’s body was thrumming with energy, fueled only by the jet-lag that keeps his body moving and eyes from shutting. Despite it only having been a two-hour flight, Eddie’s neck is stiff from the way he’d been sitting in his seat and the muscles in his lower back ache. An Advil dulls the pain in his body but does nothing to ease the tiredness in his bones. 

Unlike Christopher, Eddie hadn’t been able to sleep on the flight. He’d spent the entire time agonizing his choices, not sure if he had made the right decision by coming to LA. Horrible thoughts had plagued his mind, keeping him from being able to shut his eyes, and his anxiety made it hard to be comfortable when his stomach was in knots.

_ There are earthquakes here, _ the little voice in the back of his head had taken to reminding Eddie. _ Buildings collapsing...sinkholes...roads splitting apart... _

Eddie had just pushed those thoughts back to the farthest corners of his mind, locked that voice in a little box and threw away the key, determined to block it out.

(It didn’t help that the voice sounded suspiciously like his father’s.)

After collecting their things from the baggage claim and making their away out of the airport, all four of them -- Eddie, his _Tia_ Josephine, his _Abuela_, and Christopher -- pile into Josephine’s car and she drives them to Isobel’s house.

Christopher sits in the backseat with Isobel, and Eddie watches him through the rear-view mirror as his son stares at the window, calling out everything he can see. Eddie finds joy in the cheerful smile on Christopher’s face. One of his biggest fears about moving to Los Angeles was that Christopher would hate it here, that there wouldn’t be anything for him to love, so Eddie's glad that Christopher has already found some interest in the place.

The boy squawks happily about all the fascinating things he sees from outside of the window, and Isobel laughs along with him, while in the driver’s seat, Josephine recalls some things she knows about the area their driving through.

For the first time in hours, Eddie takes a moment to himself to just close his eyes and breathe, relaxing into his seat and listening to the sounds of his son’s laughter.

Eddie doesn’t even realize that he’s fallen asleep until he’s awoken by a loud tapping noise.

Groaning, he opens his eyes, and through blurred vision, he looks around and finds his aunt peering at him through the glass of the passenger side window.

“We’re here,” she informs him, an amused grin pulling at her lips.

Eddie just grunts an affirmative, letting her know that he understood her, and sluggishly undoes his seat belt and opens the door. As he exits the vehicle and closes the door, a sudden thought occurs to him.

“Where’s Christopher?” He asks Josephine, his gaze darting from her to the backseat. Panic blooms in his chest when he sees, through the window, that it’s empty.

  
Josephine laughs. “He’s perfectly safe, Eddie. Now, _ vamos _ . You’re _Abuela_ has made dinner and if we don’t hurry, it’s going to get cold.”

Eddie stares at her for a moment, letting her words sink in. When she raises an eyebrow at him, Eddie sighs, and not having the energy to argue, he begrudgingly follows behind her as she leads him up the porch steps and into the house. 

(Besides, he’s never going to turn down his _Abuela’s_ food.)

As soon as he steps passed the threshold of the entryway, Eddie’s sense of smell is overwhelmed by the scent of spices and fried food wafting through the air. He’s instantly hungry and a little home-sick. He hasn’t had his _Abuela’s_ cooking in so long and despite the fact that it’s just one room over, he still, somehow, finds himself missing it dearly anyway.

Quickly, Eddie kicks off his shoes and haphazardly puts them on the shoe-rack before hurrying to the kitchen, finding his way by following the smell of food. Behind him, his _Tia_ laughs at his actions, and even when he trips over his own feet, Eddie can’t find it within himself to care.

“_No te lastimes, cariño,_” Eddie hears Josephine call out but he ignores her concerns, completely focused on getting to the source of the amazing smells that have filled the house.

When he finally finds the kitchen, what Eddie sees has him coming to a screeching halt.

On the counters, piled high on plates, is an immense amount of food. On the various platters Eddie spots empanadas, taquitos, little ramekins filled with flan, and then, over at the stove where his Abuela stands, is a bubbling pot of what he guesses could only be her famous pozole. 

His mouth waters and his stomach grumbles and suddenly, Eddie is very, _ very _ hungry.

“_ Abuela _,” he says in awe, but there’s a chastising undertone to his words as he comes to stand beside her. “You didn’t have to do all this.”

“_ Disparates _ _ . _” Isobel waves her hand at him in a dismissive gesture.

“_ Es demasiado _,” he tells her and instantly wants to shove the words back in his mouth when his Abuela turns on him with her wooden spoon in hand and pointing it at him with a challenging glint in her eyes.

“It’s never too much, not for family.” She states, and despite how loving her words are, the way she’s currently wielding the spoon has Eddie terrified of her. But he sighs out a breath in relief when Isobel lowers it, only to do something much worse -- reach up on her tip-toes to pinch his cheeks. “Certainly not for my _pequeño _Edmundo.”

Somewhere to his right, Eddie can hear his _ Tia _ chuckling and he feels the tips of his ears go warm.

“Aw,” Josephine coos, “Look at him getting all red.”

Her comment only furthers to embarrass Eddie, and the heat spreads from his ears down the sides of his neck, and he can even feel, just beneath his _ Abuela’s _ fingers, that the blush has gone to his cheeks. 

  
“I’m sorry, _ mi querido _ .” Isobel apologizes, giving Eddie’s cheeks one last squeeze before letting go, and despite the apology, he doesn’t miss the mischievous glint in his _ Abeula’s _ eyes.

“_ Todo está perdonado, _ ” Eddie tells his _ Abuela _, not being able to stay annoyed with her (he’s never been, not even as a child), and she gives him a big grin.

“That’s my Edmundo,” Isobel says, leaning up and planting a big, fat affectionate kiss to his cheek. “_ La voluntad de un semental y un corazón de oro. _”

Leaning into her touch, he says, “_También te amo, abuela_. Now, is there anything you need me to do?”

“_Si_,” Isobel says, adding, “You can grab the salad and place it on the table. Christopher should be done setting it by now.”

Eddie shoots his Abuela a wide-eyed look. “You didn’t let him handle any plates, did you?”

“No,” she shakes her head. “Just the silverware.”

Eddie lets out a sigh in relief.

“Good.”

Quickly, he grabs the bowl of salad off the counter and heads for the dining room, where he finds Christopher having already claimed a seat for himself and drawing in the coloring book that Eddie had packed for him in the kid’s backpack that they’d taken onto the plane with them. 

Glancing at the table, Eddie sees that at each spot, placed neatly by the plates, were the silverware.

“Nice job, _ mijo _,” he tells Christopher, clapping a hand onto his son’s shoulder, squeezing it. At this, Christopher looks up from his coloring book and his brown gaze meets Eddie’s.

“Thanks, dad,” Chris says, smiling.

Eddie can’t help but smile back.

  
“Dinner should be ready in a few minutes,” says a voice from behind him, and when Eddie chances a look over his shoulder, he sees his _ Tia _ standing behind him, leaning against the entryway into the dining room.

At Josephine’s words, something occurs to Eddie.

“She didn’t have the stove on while you guys came to pick me up, did she?” 

Looking at his Tia, Eddie starts fearing the worst.

What if his _Abuela_ had left the stove on? _ She could’ve started a fire! _

  
Eddie didn’t quite understand, with all the food that’s currently taking up the kitchen, how it could’ve been prepared so quickly in such little time. He knows he couldn’t have slept _ that _ long in the car.

When he watches Josephine shake her head in response to his question Eddie immediately relaxes.

“She had everything cooked beforehand and turned it all off before leaving,” his Tia explains, “The food just needs to be warmed back up.”

“_ Gracias a Dios _,” Eddie mumbled, quickly doing the sign of the cross.

He doesn’t even want to think about what could’ve happened if his _Abuela_ hadn’t turned off the stove.

As if she knew they’d been talking about her (which she probably had, the distance from the kitchen to the dining room isn’t far), Eddie spots his _Abuela_ walking toward them.

“I see that he’s already starting with the fire-fighter talk,” Isobel speaks up, from where she’s come up from behind Josephine, carefully carrying the pot of pozole by the handles in her gloveless hands and walking it into the dining room.

Eddie steps out of her way but eyes the pot suspiciously.

“Why didn’t you ask me for help? I could’ve done that for,” he tells his _Abuela_, who only rolls her eyes and sets the pot down in the middle of the table. 

“Because, Eddie, I’m old, not frail,” Isobel explains to him, and he holds back his own eye roll. “But if you feel like making yourself useful, you can go get the rest of the food.”

Despite how she states it as an option, Eddie knows that it’s actually an order. 

Instead of berating his _Abuela_ on proper safety, Eddie just sighs and heads back into the kitchen and grabs the platters of food off the counters. Carefully, and with caution, Eddie somehow manages to balance all of the platters in his arms and makes it back to the dining room without dropping them.

(Okay, well, _ one _ taquito rolls off. Eddie mourns the loss.)

“Here,” Josephine says and takes the platters from Eddie’s arms and places them on the table. He’s grateful for the help. Despite the strength Eddie has, there’s something nerve-wracking about being held responsible for dropping their dinner on the floor that he just doesn’t want on his shoulders.

Once everyone is seated and their plates are all full, Eddie’s _Abuela_ calls for Grace to be spoken, which he had almost interrupted by making a grab for his empanadas. 

“_ Hey! _ ” Isobel scolds, slapping Eddie’s hand away from his plate with her own before holding it out for him to take. “We say a prayer, _and then_ we eat.”

Eddie pouts but takes her hand never-the-less. “Of course, sorry.”

As his Abuela starts praying to the Lord, all Eddie can think is_ hurry up hurry up hurry up_ while his stomach growls. When Isobel finally finishes, after what feels like forever (he suspects she went slower just to mess with him, but he has no concrete proof), Eddie wastes no time grabbing the empanada that he’s been eyeing and taking a huge bite of it.

Eddie has to hold back a moan at the explosion of flavor that bursts on his tongue.

_ Oh, God. _

How he has missed his Abuela’s cooking. While Eddie’s father’s cooking was good and all when it came to having a whole family-sit-down meal when he and his parents had gotten together for dinner, it was nothing compared to Isobel’s. Her’s is far superior!

Sitting across from him, his Abuela watches him with a smile.

“You like?”

Eddie nods, taking another bite. “I _ love _ ! This absolutely fantastic, Abuela. _ Gracias _.”

He doesn’t even care that he’s talking with his mouth full or that he’s probably (definitely) setting a bad example from Christopher, who watches him with ramp, amused attention, and just keeps on eating, Eddie’s attention focused solely on his plate in front of him.

It’s not that Eddie doesn’t know to eat nicely. He _ does _. Years of table etiquette that he received as a child have been ingrained into his brain. But there are times, like if he’s extremely tired and he simply just wants food or if he’s really excited about whatever he’s eating, that for better lack of a term, his inner trash raccoon will come out. Like it is right now.

For Christopher’s sake and to not in-still any bad habits that his son might pick up, Eddie at least makes sure to chew his food with his mouth closed and to eat a little slower.

“When do you begin your training?” Josephine asks as she, prim and proper, uses a fork and knife to eat her empanada, unlike Eddie who uses his hands. 

“On the first,” he says after he’s swallowed his food, which sits like a rock at the bottom of his stomach at the mention of his training into the Los Angeles Fire-Fighter Academy.

Eddie’s Abuela gives him a curious look. “_ ¿Muy pronto? _”

He nods. “_ Si _. They want me to get into the program as soon as possible.”

“But that’s only three days away,” Josephine says worriedly and Eddie groans.

The moving process from Texas to LA has been so hectic and fast-paced due to the fact that Eddie’s admission date for the academy has been set at the start of July, which had only left Eddie with very little time to sort everything out and have both his and Christopher’s stuff packed and moved out. Hell, his house back in Texas still wasn’t sold, but he’s leaving that responsibility entirely to his realtor.

“Ugh, don’t remind me. I’m trying not to think about it.”

“Are you excited dad?” Christopher asks and Eddie turns to look over at his son and a laugh escapes his mouth when he notices the mess on Christopher’s face.

“For sure,” Eddie tells Chris, reaching for his napkin and running it across his son’s face. 

Immediately, Christopher recoils at the touch, nose wrinkling but doesn’t say anything about Eddie cleaning off his face for him.

“I could’ve done that,” Christopher grumbles, but instead of making a fuss, he just turns back to his dinner and dirties his face again. Eddie sighs, knowing it’s losing battle -- well _that_, and he probably doesn’t look much better.

Rather than trying to keep Christopher clean, knowing if he does it a second time it’ll just end in a fight, Eddie turns back towards his plate and finishes his dinner.

He wants to help Christopher but is learning to let the boy do things on his own as he gets older. 

(It doesn’t make the pain in his heart any easier to deal with, especially not when he thinks about how Christopher is becoming more independent.)

It’s during dessert, as everyone digs into their ramekin of flan, that Eddie’s _ Tia _ asks,

“So, Edmundo, where will you and Chris be staying?”

Licking his spoon clean of the creamy dessert, Eddie glances over at Josephine.

“With _Abuela_,” he begins to explain, gaze darting over to Isobel, who smiles at him, before landing back on his _Tia_. “At least, for the time being. I’m planning on looking for apartments after the house sells. Should be able to by August, at the latest.”

Josephine’s brows furrow at his words.

“Seems like a lot to handle,” she said, asking, “How long is this academy for?”

“Twelve weeks.”

Eddie watches as she does the math in her head, can tell by the way she squints and knows where the math will place him for his expected time frame when he finishes the academy -- some time at the end of September.

“Eddie,” Josephine starts, but Eddie cuts her off.

“Look,” he says, squaring his shoulders, “I know what you’re going to say, _ Tia _, and I know that it’s a lot. I know that it’ll be tough to juggle the training while trying to sell a house and getting Christopher and I settled before the school year starts. But I have it handled, okay?”

She crooks an eyebrow at him in disbelief and Eddie just raises his own, a silent challenge.

In the end, Josephine just sighs. “...I really hope you have it all figured out, Eddie, because otherwise, not even a good prayer and dedication is going to help you.”

Eddie forces a happy, confident smile on his face.

“Don’t worry, _ Tia _. Everything will be just fine.”

At least, that’s what Eddie hopes. 

He certainly doesn’t believe it and doesn’t blame Josephine for not, either.

**XXVI.**

The next three days are a flurry of panic for Eddie.

He tries to jam as much father-son bonding time he can within the short period he has before his training begins. They watch movies, go out for ice cream, and take walks around the neighborhood. Along with trying to spend time with Christopher, not wanting him to feel neglected, Eddie is also requested by his Abuela to help around the house. 

So, as an activity they can do together, Eddie takes Christopher along him to the grocery store.

This, however, presents itself as a challenge.

Because, what Eddie hadn’t known when it came to living in LA, is that if there’s something you need to do, you have to plan ahead way earlier than you thought you’d have too. But as a newbie in the city of angels, Eddie doesn’t know how bad the traffic is going to be.

The amount of time that he and Chris end up spending just sitting in the car, in a long row, behind miles and miles of other vehicles, with the boiling heat of the summer sun glaring down at them from where it sits high in the sky, is actually a few hours. 

To save themselves from heat-stroke, Eddie had ended up blasting the AC in the rental car (and that’s another thing he has yet to get to: buying his own car) and to keep his son occupied, and to not die of boredom himself, Eddie plays a few rounds of I-Spy with Christopher.

Christopher hadn’t seemed to mind the lengthy wait, unlike Eddie, whose resolve had taken a toll.

His only saving grace during the trip to the grocery store had been the games he played with Christopher and listening to the radio -- but even that had become annoying when some news-anchor woman, one Taylor Kelly, would come on for the one-hundredth time and announce just how badly traffic had been. As if he and the thousands of other people in their cars hadn't already known _that _particular detail.

If it hadn’t meant that he’d have to sit in silence, Eddie would’ve turned the radio off.

But he hadn’t. 

Instead, he had accepted his fate and kept his complaints to himself. 

(Plus, it was a little pathetic that if an eight-year-old wasn’t outwardly complaining about the shitty traffic, then how would it look if Eddie, a thirty-two-year-old, had?) 

There is one good thing that Eddie learns from that experience -- besides the fact that he never wants to do it again -- is to plan ahead.

It also prepares him for when July 1st rolls around, all too quickly for Eddie’s liking, and Eddie has to navigate the streets of downtown LA. 

Fortanuley, it’s 6 AM on a Sunday, so the streets aren’t yet crowded with angry and frustrated drivers, but they are certainly active with morning-goers and early-birds who jog down the sidewalks and bikers.

Unfortunately, however, it’s 6 AM on a fucking Sunday, and Eddie’s already exhausted and his training hasn’t even begun.

He’d spent the night trying to get Christopher to go to bed, but the boy had been very adamant about staying awake. It had taken three stories, two glasses of water, a pee break, and a warm glass of milk to get his son to finally fall asleep. That, plus having a fitful sleep due to sleeping on the pull-out couch in the living room that was all springs and letting Christopher have the bed in the guest room, Eddie hadn’t had a good night.

When Eddie rolls up into the parking lot of the address he’d been given, dressed in the work-gear he’d been told to wear in preparation for training, and walks inside the building with his forms, he finds himself standing inside of a large gym. 

He walks up to the desk, where a man sits, greeting Eddie as he steps through the doors and into the gymnasium.

“Name?” Asks the man as Eddie walks up to him.

“Diaz, Edmundo,” he offers, and the man quickly checks a list on his clipboard, and once he finds Eddie’s name on the paper, he gestures for the forms in Eddie’s hands.

Handing them over, the man takes them from Eddie and quickly scans them before placing them on top of a growing stack off to the side.

“Go,” says the man, pointing his finger at the other trainees behind him, that are all spread out at various tables. “Take a seat. The fire captain will be with you shortly.”

With that, Eddie listens to his orders and walks his way over to the trainees. 

He takes a seat beside a woman, and when he greets her with a friendly smile, all she does is give him a scowl. 

_ Okay, then... _

Eddie sits quietly, waiting at the time, skimming through the rule book that’s on the table that goes over LA housing codes, fire safety, and other building codes. Everyone at the tables has been presented one, but only a few are looking it over like Eddie is.

Time passes, and it’s been about ten minutes until a bald man, tall and stocky, waltzes into the room. There’s a certain air he has around him that immediately has Eddie on alert. Once his eyes land on the man, Eddie is on his feet, and the rest of the class follows when they realize what’s caused the sudden commotion in the room.

The man comes to stand in front of the room and Eddie instantly realizes who this man is -- the fire captain.

When the man goes to open his mouth, Eddie knows that what the captain’s about to say is going to stay him for the rest of his life.

“You see this?” The captain holds up a badge. “This is a Los Angeles Fire-Fighter patch. You’re all here because you want to wear one...But membership in the world’s elite life-saving service must be earned -- physically and mentally you’ll be tested as though your life depended on it because that’s the business we’re in: Life and death.”

Eddie’s not shocked about this, has heard a similar speech in the army when he was serving as a medic, but some of the cadets around him go a little wide-eyed. The glimmer of awe that had been in their eyes at seeing that badge, of having it presented to them like a shiny bar of gold, begins to fade. 

Suddenly, the reality of what they signed up for starts to sink in. 

But for Eddie, he knows exactly what he signed up for. 

Knows that this speech isn’t just used to inspire, it’s also used to weed out the weak-links in the class, to spark fear in the hearts of those who can’t take the heat.

For Eddie, he’s no stranger to fire. 

Has run headlong into danger since he enlisted in the army at eighteen and took up the training to become a medic. If watching the people around him die, of being soaked in their blood and having their souls sit heavy on his shoulders isn’t going to scare him away, then neither is this little speech.

“...Folks, this isn’t just another job, this is _ not _ a hobby. So, if you feel even the slightest glimmer of doubt about your ability to make that kind of commitment, then I suggest that you head back out that door.”

The sound of shoes squeaking against the floor fills the gym as two of Eddie’s classmates make a run for the door.

But Eddie’s feet? They stay rooted to the ground.

**XXVII.**

There’s only one thing Eddie wants to do when he gets home and that’s to _die_.

Well, not literally, but after seven grueling hours of non-stop training, he certainly feels like he’s on the precipice of death.

During the walk to his rental car and the drive back to his _ Abuela’s _, Eddie gets several cramps in his legs. He also gets caught in traffic, because it’s a little later in the afternoon so that roads are busier than they had been this morning.

The only good thing about being stuck in traffic is that he has the time to stretch out his calf muscles without having to worry about keeping his eyes on the road or suddenly being cut off. He’s just left to sit in the car, AC pumping through the vents and cooling the car, with the radio turned up on some new age-y music that he’s not totally familiar with.

Eddie phones his _Abuela_ and lets her know that he’ll be home soon, all he’s got to do now is wait.

Since his _ Abuela _ doesn’t work, being in retirement and all, Eddie’s glad that she’s able to watch Christopher for him. He knows that in the long run, he won’t always be able to depend on her to babysit his son. She’s old and while she’ll never actually admit it, delicate. His _ Abuela _ can’t keep up with Christopher, even if he is a kid with CP and can’t move very fast, Chris is still speedier then his great-grandmother.

Eddie files away the idea of _ Get A Babysitter _ _ for Christopher_ in the back of his head, something to remember for a later date, deciding not to worry about that right now, instead, he focuses on keeping his car in the right lane as traffic begins to start up.

When Eddie finally gets to his _ Abuela’s _, he’s practically just dragging his feet across the pavement, and it takes all that remains of his energy to get from the car to the front door. 

He is, however, greeted by a pleasant sight -- of his son excitedly waddling up to him on his crutches.

“DAD!” Christopher shouts as he gets closer and closer until he’s only a foot apart, and Eddie reluctantly waits for the boy to get to him instead of closing the distance like he so desperately wants to. It’s part of letting Christopher be independent -- letting his kid handle the smaller thing that he’s able to, instead of just doing it for him like Eddie’s brain and instincts have been programmed to do over all the years.

“_ Mijo, _” Eddie breathes out once Christopher is standing right before him, and Eddie leans down and wraps his son in a hug. Even though Eddie’s all sweaty, Christopher doesn’t seem to care. He just hugs his father right back.

Despite how tired Eddie feels, he gains a bit of energy from the hug and the love he receives from his son.

Besides coffee, Eddie’s found over the years that the best energy boost he can get is from his child loving him back. It makes Eddie’s heart melt a little.

When Christopher pulls back, however, that love is only topped by the concern that fills Eddie at the sight of the bandaid on Christopher’s chin that he somehow missed when Eddie had first spotted him when coming in the house.

“Hey,” Eddie says, gesturing at his son’s face, “_ ¿Que es esto? _”

“Tripped,” Christopher explains with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders.

Eddie simply sighs at this.

A long time ago, he’s had to accept the fact that unlike most kids, Christopher was always going to be clumsier than the others around him. This meant always having a bandaid on hand, and that the random scraps and bruises that littered Christopher’s body at any given moment were the norm.

So, even though Eddie doesn’t like the casual way Christopher had told him that he tripped, Eddie knows that it’s nothing out of the unusual.

It’s just another day in the Diaz household.

It doesn’t make Eddie feel any better, though.

“You didn’t hurt yourself too badly, did you?” He has to ask, because well, this is his kid that Eddie’s talking too.

Chris shakes his head. 

“No,” he tells Eddie, smiling goofily up at his father.

“Okay,” Eddie says, and presses a kiss to Christopher’s head. “You just gotta be careful, buddy. Okay?”

“Yeah, dad,” his son agrees, in that same exasperated tone that every kid uses when their parents point out something they’ve heard a million times. 

“_ Yeah _ ,” Eddie repeats, mocking his son’s voice, and Christopher just laughs at him. Glancing around the room, he finds that somebody is missing, and he raises a curious eyebrow at his kid. “...Where’s _ Abuela _?”

“Kitchen.”

Eddie takes the answer he’s been given and figures that his_ Abuela’s _ getting a head start on dinner.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Eddie tells Christopher, adding, “But after, do you want to watch a movie?”

Chris gives him a happy nod and Eddie smiles and figures, that despite how badly his body aches, it was too bad of a first.

(Later, Eddie sends Sonya a text message, letting her know that he’s survived his first day. 

It takes a few minutes, but eventually, he gets a reply.

** _Sounds brutal_ ** , the first text says, and then a few seconds later, ** _You need some ice, big guy?_ **

Sonya follows the message with a picture of her dressed in a full-body bathing suit, lounging on a chair and drinking what Eddie guesses is a glass of lemonade, going by the yellow color and the fruit that’s in it.

And the _ice_ that floats around in the glass. 

It takes Eddie a second to figure it out, but once he does, he simply replies with an emoji of a middle finger.

In response, Sonya just sends him a voice memo of her cackling wickedly.)

**XXVIII.**

Over the next twelve weeks, there are definitely times where Eddie wants to quit, but it has less to do with the painstaking process that he’s put through in his training, and more to do with the stress he faces outside of that.

Slowly, as the days pass, Christopher starts to miss him more, and with all that’s going on, Eddie isn’t able to give his son the attention that he needs. Eddie tries his hardest to be there for Christopher, to listen to him when he talks about his day and reading him comics when it’s bed-time, and playing with him. 

Eddie knows, above everything else, that his son is the most important thing in his life.

Training doesn’t come first, Christopher does, but there’s some serious anxiety that Eddie is hit with when he begins to find himself doubting if he can juggle being both an amazing father and an amazing fire-fighter.

His progress in the academy suffers because of it, and there’s some yelling that comes with it, and he’s reprimanded and told to _ get his ass moving _. 

So, Eddie does what he’s best at, and pushes it all back.

The anxiety and the doubt -- they get shoved into a little lockbox and thrown into the deepest corners of his mind.

Due to his slacking in his performance, Eddie is forced to stay behind longer to make up for the time, and when Eddie gets home it’s later than usual, and instead of being three in the afternoon it’s five in the evening when he walks through his Abuela’s door.

Usually, Eddie has time to take a shower and help his Abuela prepare dinner, but when he gets home now, it’s already cooked.

Christopher takes to ignoring him again as he did all those years ago, and Eddie’s heart takes a brutal beating at the distance his son sets between Eddie and himself. It doesn’t matter what Eddie tries, whether it be trying to reach out emotionally or bribing him with new comics and ice cream, Chris doesn’t budge.

It’s only when Eddie has the bright idea to wake up earlier than he already has too and begin making his famous pancakes and present them to Christopher that his son starts speaking to him again, if only in short, blunt increments. 

And truly, Eddie doesn’t care if he only gets one-word answers, he’ll take it over the grunts and glares he’s been on the receiving end of.

Every time Eddie comes home, he’s always drenched in sweat, exhausted from the day he’s had and the horrible drive home. It’s always in the shower that he’ll discover some new bruises that he got during training. The blisters that have formed on his hands and feet sting whenever he goes to use his body-wash or shampoo, and it takes a while for him to admit that he needs help, which leads to him very reluctantly asking his Abuela to assist him in the shower.

(He’s not happy about it and his skin flushes red in embarrassment now whenever he walks into the bathroom.)

When he goes to bed at night, Eddie finds all sorts of new ways that his body can ache, and that no matter how many pain pills he takes, they do nothing to alleviate the soreness that irradiates throughout his limbs.

At some point, he learns a fancy technique to try when he gets home, and that’s to sit in a bathtub of ice for fifteen minutes.

(It’s a freezing endeavor, that leaves his testicles feeling like snowballs, but when he gets out, Eddie doesn’t hurt as much. And it helps when he also starts using a heating pad when he goes to sleep.)

In his training, Eddie learns how to safely migrate through a burning building; of how to use a fire hose and put out a fire; of the proper way to carry a victim’s body out of a building. He learns how to carefully tread a roof-top and where to step and where not too.

He has to some or all of these tasks with the rest of his class, performing as a team, to successfully salvage the situation that their captain has put them in.

Of course, Eddie knows, that this is a controlled environment. 

In reality, out there in the real world when he’s finally graduated, it won’t matter how quick he is or if he beats a stupid timer. Nothing out there is planned and he’ll be winging’ it at best. 

That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t put his everything into all he’s got when it comes to his training.

In the mean-time, outside of all of that, Eddie is not a fire-fighter, but a father and grandson.

And whenever Eddie has a free moment to spare, he splits his time between Christopher and his _ Abuela _. 

With Christopher, Eddie helps him build a blanket-fort, where they read comics and watch movies in the living room. He kicks around a soccer ball with his son, and panics when Christopher lands on his butt, and cries/laughs when he just looks up at Eddie with a smile and asks his father he can do that again.

(Which no, Eddie definitely doesn’t let him do.)

It’s easier with his _ Abuela _, who understands that Eddie has a lot going on, so she doesn’t ask him for much. But Eddie gratefully accepts going on a grocery run or mowing the lawn when she needs him too.

Once, Eddie’s even able to make tacos for the three of them.

Meanwhile, the months' pass by, and July blends into August blends into September. 

Eddie doesn’t even try to get Christopher into school, deciding that he can miss a month, mostly because Eddie’s not entirely sure if he wants his son going to a regular school or this other fancy school that specifically caters to kids with special needs and disabilities.

The only problem with that is that Eddie doesn’t know if he’ll be able to afford it. 

So, he just sets it on the back burner.

During all this, Eddie is also looking for a place to live, especially since his house in Texas sells and he’s finally free of it. 

It’s during the night, when Eddie’s scrolling on his laptop that he finds a ground level, single-floor apartment in his price range. It’s got an open floor plan, very spacious, easy to move around for Christopher. Three-bedroom, two bathrooms, and a backyard. It’s absolutely beautiful and exactly what Eddie’s been looking for. 

(If Eddie immediately places a bet on it, it’s his business and his business only.

But like hell, if he’s going to let anyone else get it.)

Eddie’s so distracted with everything that’s been going on that he doesn’t even realize that his graduation is happening until it’s actually happening.

On the day of, his captain has Eddie and the rest of his class to stand in a single-file line facing the older man.

The man begins reading names off the clipboard, going in alphabetical order, and Eddie knows his will be getting called soon.

When the captain reads people's names off, Eddie begins to notice a pattern, how the older man, if it’s bad news, will begin with the person’s first time, not their last. Two people in Eddie’s class get dismissed, getting told that they hadn’t passed, and Eddie holds his breath when the captain turns to him.

_ Don’t say my first name don’t say my first name don’t say my first name. _

“Diaz!” The captain calls out, and immediately, the anxiety in Eddie’s gut lessens. “Congratulations, cadet. You’ve graduated. You’ll be spending your probationary period with the…” The older man pauses and quickly rifles through the papers that are stuck onto his clipboard.

It takes a moment before he finds what he's looking for.

“Ah, here it is! You’re with Station 1-1-8, Diaz.”

(And little did Eddie know that the decision to place him with that fire-house would change his life forever.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everybody! I hope you enjoyed this update. If you did, please leave a kudos/comment! They really make my day.
> 
> [I'm not going to lie, this chapter really kicked my butt. I'm looking forward to writing the next one AND the next episode of 911. How about you? Also, if I don't update this again before the 31st, I just want to say that I hope everyone has a spooktacular and safe Halloween!]


	6. First Impressions (Aren't always what they seem)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Thanks for all the love and support and not giving up entirely on this fic even though the update has taken me a long time to post. I really hope you enjoy it. This chapter follows the first episode of season two: 'Under Pressure'.

**Eddie**

**XXIX.**

The apartment that Eddie had put a bid on goes through, which makes it a quick scramble to get his and Christopher’s stuff in order and move into the new place. 

When Eddie had been doing his fire-fighter training and found some time off, he’d taken a tour of the apartment, and discovered that it, and the rest of the other apartments, had been built with families with relatives that have disabilities in mind. 

Which made the house even better, especially when he had looked into the main bathroom and saw that there were railings on the wall of the tub and at the edges to help someone get out of it and that it hadn’t been very high. It meant that when Eddie had brought up Christopher to the landlord, there had been no need to explain his son’s needs other than his medical condition. 

After that day, it was only a two-day wait before Eddie had gotten the call and told the news that the apartment was his. 

Eddie couldn’t have been happier. 

With the new apartment and freshly out of the fire-fighter academy, things were finally starting to work out like he had imagined they would. 

Eddie had even gotten Christopher, in the meanwhile, into a program at one of the local elementary schools that would keep Chris going forward on his homework and up-to-date on his learning while Eddie tried to find a permanent solution to his son’s schooling that would be less stressful for the kid.

While Christopher is at school, Eddie is packing, and when he’s not, Eddie is frantically preparing for his first day at the fire-house he’d been assigned too and helping his _ Abuela _around the house. 

The day Eddie had been told he had passed, he’d gone straight to his Abuela’s and told her about the fantastic news, and they’d gone out for dinner that night with Christopher, and Eddie’s _ Tia_, Josephine.

While they’d been staying at Isobel’s, Eddie hadn’t unpacked much, not having seen the point when they wouldn’t be staying with her permanently. But that train of thought hadn’t been shared amongst Christopher, who, unlike his father, had taken to spreading out his toys and other belongings in the guest room.

(It took several hours, but eventually, the room had been restored to its former glory.)

Luckily for Eddie, besides dressers, nightstands, and bedframes, all of which he had waiting in storage, the apartment had come fully furnished. It makes it easy for Eddie, who honestly hadn’t been looking forward to picking out furniture. If there was one thing that Eddie didn’t understand about owning a home, it was decorating it.

For him, Eddie didn’t much care what his furniture looked like (okay, he wouldn’t be happy with like a neon couch) as long as it was functional and comfortable.

In the few days that Eddie had before he had to start his new job, he uses to get his and Christopher’s stuff out of storage (everything that hadn’t been able to fit in their suitcases, got shipped over from Texas to Los Angeles) and puts together the bedframes of their beds and to semi-organized the general layout of their bedrooms.

During all that, when Christopher isn’t at school or with Abuela, he’s with Eddie at the new apartment, either decorating his new bedroom or helping Eddie put stuff away (it’s mostly just sitting on the floor and calling out which items should go where and which box has in it). 

On the night before Eddie’s first day at work, he cooks himself and Christopher’s a celebratory meal -- an award for all their hard work that’s paid off.

“How is it?” Eddie asks after he’s helped guide his son’s spoon to his mouth, letting the kid do most of the work by himself but making sure it doesn’t slip from his fingers. 

Swallowing his first bite, Christopher gives it a second before smiling widely at Eddie.

“It’s good!”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying it.” Eddie smiles back before turning to his bowl. 

The meal itself had come from a box. While it isn’t exactly a very healthy choice, and it’s a little sad that their real first dinner in the apartment is Mac ‘N’ Cheese, Eddie can’t find it within himself to care.

Together, the two of them eat in relative silence, with small breaks in between when Christopher babbles happily about his day. 

“Dad,” Christopher says, wiping at his face with his hand, “Are you excited about tomorrow?”

Eddie pauses and has to think for a second.

He definitely felt nervous about it all -- about being the new guy and if he’d get along with anyone in the fire-house. But, some excitement about it, laid beneath the anxiety that was curling around Eddie’s heart.

“Yeah, _ mijo_,” he says, handing his son a napkin. “I’m excited.”

**XXX.**

That morning, after his alarm clock has rung and he’s dragged himself into the bathroom and taken a shower, Eddie fiddles with his hair a little bit more than he usually would. 

For Eddie, he didn’t necessarily care about how he looked, but the other day when his Abuela had made him sit down in her kitchen and give him a haircut, effectively shaving away the long brown locks that used to reach down to his shoulder but are now neatly trimmed to only a few inches tall on the top of his head, poofed back in a fluffy pile, he was a little nervous about his appearance. 

He could still hear his _ Tia _ Josephine’s words ringing in his ears, reminding how about how looks mattered, making Eddie feel less like a thirty-two-year-old man and more like a teenager preparing for their freshmen year of high school.

After getting dressed and getting Christopher ready for the day, the two have a quick breakfast that consisted of cereal. That proceeds with Eddie dropping his son off at school, kissing Christopher on the forehead and wishing him a good day, and then racing towards Station 1-1-8.

When Eddie arrives at the firehouse, it’s still pretty early. Grabbing his duffle bag from the passenger seat, he hops out of his rental car and makes his way towards the building. There’s a group heading out just as he’s walking in, no doubt the night-shift.

“Hey,” he calls out, making the group stop on the way to their respective vehicles. 

“Yeah?” A brunette woman asks, eyes furrowed in confusion. “You need help with something?”

“I’m wondering where I could find Captain Nash?” Eddie tells her, adding, “I was told to report to him.”

A look of understanding dawns on the brunette’s face.

“Ah, a new recruit, gotcha. Alright, your gonna wanna try the second floor, he’ll be in the kitchen.”

“Thanks.”

Eddie gets a pat on the shoulder from the woman and a chorus of ‘good luck's' from the group before they start walking off.

Listening to the advice he’s been given, Eddie heads into the fire-house, walking passed the fire trucks. He sees that there are already a few people loitering around, either cleaning equipment, playing ping-pong, or working out in this make-shifter gym area off to the side.

He receives a few odd stares and flashes a quick, awkward smile at people that notice him before hurrying up the stairs to loft area, where he can smell something delicious cooking. The sound of his feet clambering on the stairs alerts everyone of his presence.

Heads swivel around to look at the cause of the commotions, dozens of pairs of eyes landing on him. 

Ignoring the looks, Eddie glances around the room, trying to see if he can tell which of these people are Captain Nash when a voice calls out,

“Eddie Diaz?”

Eddie turns at the sound of someone saying his name and finds an older man, possibly in his early fifties, with grey hair. The smile on the man’s face is kind, but the way he holds himself screams_ authority_. It’s written in the straightness of his back, of the confidence he holds in shoulders, how everyone around Eddie, from where they sit at the dining table, or on the couch off to the side playing video games, all go silent and alert as the man approaches Eddie.

Instantly, Eddie knows that the person walking towards him is the fire captain.

“Yes?” Eddie asks, straightening out his shoulders.

“Welcome to the 1-1-8, I’m Bobby,” Captain Nash says, holding out his hand for Eddie to shake. 

Eddie takes Captain Nash’s — _ Bobby’s _ — hand and shakes it firmly for a few seconds before letting it go.

“I’m glad to be here,” Eddie tells him and then looks around the room, shifting the strap of his duffle bag. “Uh...Do you know where I put my stuff?”

Bobby chuckles lightly. “Of course. Downstairs in the change rooms, you’ll have your own locker for your personal effects, and you have a separate cubby for your turnout gear along with everyone else along the wall by the trucks. Why don’t you go get changed and we’ll go from there, alright?”

Eddie nods. “Sure thing, Cap.”

Doing as he’s been instructed, Eddie walks back down the stairs, and easily finds the changing rooms. Inside the changing room, he finds his locker, which is simply marked ‘E. Diaz’. It’s a push-lock rather than a combination lock, so all Eddie has to do is push up on the handle and the door of the locker swings open.

Eddie shoves his duffle down into the locker, but not before digging out his work clothes.

Quickly, Eddie begins to change from his street-wear into his work clothes.

After he’s switched from his jeans into his black pants and runners into work shoes, he takes his LAFD mandated t-shirt and begins pulling it on as he walks out of the changing room. Once it’s fitted over his torso, he checks the clothing cubby that’s right outside of the changing room and grabs a dark navy blue button-up.

But just as Eddie’s pushing his arms through the sleeves, he hears a voice say, “Hey!”

The voice is friendly and warm, and when Eddie looks up from where his eyes had been focused on his shirt, his gaze lands on a woman. She has beautiful black skin, and behind her glasses is a set of brown eyes that look at him with curiosity. Walking up behind her is Bobby and a short Asian man.

“Eddie, this is Hen,” Bobby says in lieu of a greeting, gesturing with his hand at the woman. “Hen, this is Eddie.”

“Nice to meet you,” Hen tells Eddie, holding out her hand for him to shake. 

“You, too,” Eddie replies, quickly shaking his hand before retracting, but just ends up having to point it at the Asian man, who Bobby introduces as ‘Chimney’. 

“Hi,” Eddie says, smiling at Chimney, who grins back up at him after they’ve shaken hands.

“So, first day, huh?” Chimney says as he chews on a piece of gum.

Eddie nods. “Yeah.”

“You nervous?”

“Chim!” Hen scolds, smacking the guy on the arm. “You can’t just ask someone that!”

“Sorry!” Chimney apologizes, first to Hen, and then to Eddie, “Sorry, man.”

“Uh, it’s fine,” Eddie laughs, waving off the comment. “I guess I am a little nervous. But that’s just normal to have first-day jitters.”

“Totally!” Hen smiles. “You should’ve seen this guy on his first day—”

Chimney turns on her, making an abortive gesture with his hands, shaking his head.

“Hey! No, we don’t talk about it! _ Remember? _”

They continue to chatter, trading friendly bits of conversation here and there, before Hen disappears into the changing rooms to switch into her work clothes.

As Chimney is talking to him, Eddie notices someone skulking off in the near distance, a tall blonde guy. His blue gaze is fixed on Eddie, who watches the man out of the corner of his eye, wondering why Mr. Tall and Blonde is giving Eddie such a disgruntled look.

“Okay, who’s that?” Eddie asks because he can’t take the mystery any longer.

“Who’s who?” Chimney questions back and Eddie tilts his head in the blonde’s direction. Taking notice of where Eddie’s directing him, a look of realization takes over Chimney's face, who huffs out a laugh. 

“Oh, _ him_,” Chimney says, “That’s Buck.”

Chimney phrases the words ‘That’s Buck’ as if it is supposed to explain everything — like the guy’s weird behavior and why he’s looking at Eddie like he took the last cookie out of the jar.

Before Eddie can ask for Chimney to elaborate, the siren is suddenly blaring throughout the whole station. 

Eddie goes still for a moment, knowing he should be doing something, but not exactly sure what. 

He realizes what he’s been waiting for when Bobby races by him and shouts, “Hen, Chim, Buck, and Eddie — you’re with me today. Let’s roll!”

Besides Eddie, Chimney smiles. “Looks like it’s your first ride! I didn’t even get to out on my first day.”

Eddie shoots him a quizzical look but never-the-less follows the shorter man towards the fire-truck.

**XXXI.**

Eddie’s looking out the window of the fire-truck when his attention is caught by Chimney asking, “So, silver-star, huh?”

Gaze traveling from where it’s stuck on the passing cars to the man, Eddie stares at Chimney for a moment, caught off guard by the question. Eddie wants to ask how Chimney knows that information because Eddie certainly hadn’t given it to him.

Looking at Chimney, and going by the tone of his voice, Eddie knows that the guy’s impressed.

Eddie just wishes he wasn’t.

“Yeah,” Eddie replies, simple and to the point, having no desire to wanting to continue this particular topic. 

But, unlike Eddie, Chimney finds Eddie’s past service record something of interest, and, deciding to prod further, he asks, “Did you serve on a platoon or something?”

At the question, a flurry of images, of memories of Afghanistan, flash before Eddie’s eyes. He can vaguely make out the faces of lost friends before they become blurred by a wash of sand and blood. Somewhere, behind the noise of the fire truck’s horn, which emits loudly and harshly in the air, Eddie can just barely hear the sounds of gun-fire.

When he blinks, he no longer sees bullet casings and corpses, his gaze only filled, for a brief moment, with blue. 

It takes Eddie a second to realize that he’s made eye contact with the blonde guy that had been staring at him earlier. _ Buck_, that’s what Chimney had called him. Blue eyes peer into brown, dusty ash eyebrows scrunched together, perplexed.

Eddie glances over at Chimney. 

(He pretends it’s because he wants to answer Chimney’s question and not because of Buck's deep, blue gaze that had felt like it had been piercing into Eddie’s soul.)

“Uh, no, no...nothing like that,” Eddie begins to explain once he’s found his voice, “Just a convoy.”

“So, Eddie,” Hen's voice comes through Eddie’s head-set, and he glances over at her to see her leaning out of her seat towards him, as she inquiries, “Have you heard of the Hot Fire-Man Calendar?”

For a second, Eddie thinks he’s heard her wrong.

But then a goofy grin over-takes Hen’s face when both Buck and Chimney send her an odd look and Eddie’s suspicions are confirmed. He hadn’t misheard her.

“Sorry,” he shakes his head, a little shocked by the question. “_ The what? _”

“It’s for charity!” Hen says with a shrug, all nonchalant and innocent-like like she hadn’t just asked Eddie — if he’s guessing correctly — if he’s heard about a calendar that market’s half-nude photos of fire-fighters.

Somewhere behind Eddie, sitting in the front cabin of the fire truck, Bobby chuckles.

Eddie notices that notes of amusement in the older man’s laughter, but also how he sounds completely unsurprised that Hen would ask someone this kind of question.

Brushing off the strange comment, Eddie just smiles and laughs along with him, but stops when Buck speaks up.

“So, is your full name ‘Edwardo’?”

Eddie blinks, thrown for a loop, mostly because it’s the first words that Buck’s ever spoken to him. Never once since Eddie’s stepped foot inside of the truck has Buck ever tried to initiate a conversation with him, but rather taken to remaining silent as he sat opposite of Eddie, his face seeming stuck with a permanent frown that’s overtaken his peachy-pink lips.

Eddie purses his lips and simply answers back, “No.”

“Do people ever call you ‘Diaz’?”

Eddie stares at the blonde, trying to figure out what’s going on inside of the guy’s head, wanting to know where he was going with this line of questioning.

Deciding to indulge in Buck’s sudden curiosity, Eddie shakes his head.

“Not if they want me to respond,” he explains, his answer both truthful and not at the same time.

Honestly, it depended on the person, when it came to someone using his last name.

Eddie wouldn’t have an issue if it was a stranger or Bobby using it, knowing that what some Captain’s do — had gotten used to the fire marshal calling Eddie by his last name during training — but when it comes to the people that are supposed to be his teammates...well, Eddie’s not exactly comfortable with it.

Buck’s nose wrinkles up at that.

“Something’s gotta give,” he says, before gesturing around the truck. “We’ve Cap, Hen, Chimney, Buck —” Buck points at himself, “-- we can’t just call you ‘Eddie’.”

At Buck’s words, Eddie glances at the others, baffled.

“I can’t tell if he’s being serious or not?”

“I like to always operate under the assumption that nothing he says is serious,” Chimney says, and the truck erupts with amused laughter at the joke.

In front of Eddie, Buck leans back in his seat with an annoyed huff.

Conversation dies down, and Eddie returns his gaze to the window.

And during the rest of the drive, Eddie ignores the way Buck stares at him, the blonde’s heated gaze feeling like it’s burning a hole in the side of Eddie’s head.

**XXXII.**

Once they’ve arrived at Hector’s Rim and Tire Shop, a concerned mechanic begins to explain the situation to the group as he walks them into the building.

“The air nozzle is embedded into his ass cheek,” the mechanic tells Bobby, as he direct’s them over to where the owner slash victim of the emergency is. “I shut it off, but I was afraid to move him.”

“Okay, Hector, can you hear me?” Bobby asks once they’ve come upon Hector, who sits on the floor, skin bulging against his uniform, looking like an over-inflated human balloon.

Hector gives a meek nod in response.

“Alright, hang in there,” Bobby tells him, before turning his gaze on them.

“Let’s get him on his side,” Bobby orders, and they all carefully surround Hector and get their hands on his legs and arms, “and maintain pressure on the wound. On three — one, two, _ three— _”

Together, as a team, Chimney, Hen, Buck, and Eddie lift Hector off of the air nozzle. The man in question lets out a wail in pain as they lay him on the floor.

“Easy, easy,” Bobby says, just as Hen is pulling out her stethoscope and places it on Hector’s chest, listening to his heart and lungs, while Buck looks at the air gauge.

“That’s a hundred pounds per square inch of air pumped throughout his entire body,” Buck comments and all Eddie can think is,_ Dios Mio_.

“Breathing’s shallow, heart’s racing,” Hen tells them and begins feeling at Hector’s torso, doing a pelvic exam. “...Air has filled his stomach, his chest —” she pauses to quickly look at his face before adding, “and even behind his eyelids. But I’m more concerned about the space around his heart and lungs.”

“Okay, Eddie, start a nasal cannula — Chimney, get him some morphine!” Bobby says, and doing as the captain orders, Eddie grabs the oxygen tank and the thin, clear plastic tubes that lead the oxygen from the tank up to the person’s nose and brings it over to Hector.

Just as Eddie’s getting the tubes around Hector’s face, he hears Chimney grumble, “It’s like trying to inject a needle into stone!”

When Eddie gets the tubes situated around Hector’s nose, the air that’s already pushing out of it and expelling from his body keeps the tubes from being placed and has them moving around.

“The pressure’s pushing everything out,” Eddie says, calmly but grumpily. “I can’t even get air through the nostrils!”

On Hector’s other side, Hen begins to rattle over what she sees. 

“Jugular vein is distended...tachycardia...hypertension...dimension breath sounds — we’re looking at tension pneumothorax.”

“The air pressure is collapsing his organs,” Bobby realizes, before looking at the group and saying, “We need to get in there and drain the fluid — Buck, I need you to get a fourteen gauge angiocath. We need to start decompressing the pleural cavity.”

Buck grabs the angiocath and comes to kneel at Hector’s side, unbuttoning the man’s shirt.

“Want me to help?” Eddie offers when he notices Buck struggling.

“Nope, I got it,” Buck says, a harsh edge of bitterness in his tone.

As Buck prepares to stick the angiocath in Hector, Eddie spots where Buck plans to do it and quickly suggests, “I’d go lower.”

Buck blue eyes dart up at him, sharp and deadly like a set of daggers.

“What? Um, no, the second intercostal space midclavicular line,” the blonde stated, matter-of-fact, jaw clenching as he speaks the words.

“The chest wall is thinner at the fifth intercostal, at the anterior axillary line,” Eddie explains, all of his medic training coming back to him in an instant as he looks down at Hector’s chest and gestures to where he means. “There’s a decreased chance of injuring any vital organs.”

Eddie peers up at Bobby, offering as a way of permission, “I’ve treated guys with collapsed lungs in combat.”

Bobby nods, “Do it.”

Eddie glances back down at Hector then at Buck, looking at the blonde and saying, “Please?”

It wouldn’t have mattered if Buck had freely given him the angiocath or not. Eddie would’ve found a way to get it from Buck’s hands one way or another, but decides that asking politely will appease the taller man, whose body immediately goes tense as Eddie holds out his hand for the angiocath, waiting.

With a sigh, Buck quickly but reluctantly hands the object over and Eddie takes it in his hands before undoing the cap.

“Now, help me out with his shirt,” he instructs Buck, and even though Eddie’s eyes are cast down at Hector, he knows that Buck’s giving him a dirty look.

Buck hurriedly strips Hector’s button-up open, leaving Eddie to freely cut a hole in the white under-shirt with the scissors he grabbed from the near-by tool kit and taking the angiocath in hand, Eddie carefully and precisely, sticks it into the man’s chest.

Undoing the top of the angiocath, leaving the needle part in Hector, a stream of air blows out of it.

Immediately, the air in Hector’s body starts to decompress as it escapes through the angiocath, his chest and limbs deflating and the tension leaving his body.

Eddie stares at Hector’s body, amazing at what he’s just done for the man.

He hasn’t done anything quite like this in _years_ and he’s relieved that it worked.

“That’s it, Hector,” Bobby speaks up once Hector’s able to open his eyes and can breathe again. “Nice and slow.”

Using his forearm, Eddie wipes at the sweat that’s collected at his brow.

He quickly sends out a thankful prayer.

After Hector is completely decompressed, Hen and Chimney load him onto a gurney and lead him towards the ambulance.

Eddie grabs the gear and brings it back over to the fire truck.

Just as he’s finishing putting it away, he feels a hand on his shoulder and glances behind him.

“It was a good call, Eddie,” Bobby says, smiling at him, all proud and almost, well, _ fatherly-like. _

Eddie’s only able to recognize the look on the older man’s face because it’s the same look Eddie gets whenever Christopher’s accomplished something.

“Thanks, Cap,” Eddie called out as the man walks away.

“Nice job,” Chimney comments as he wanders by, and Eddie shoots the guy a smile before turning back to his task. The engine of the fire truck rumbles to life just as he feels someone come up behind him.

When Eddie glances up, his brown gaze lands on Buck, who brushes passed him.

But before he walks completely passed, he stops momentarily and leans down into Eddie’s face.

“Yeah,” he says, “Good call.”

The way Buck says the words, Eddie’s not sure if the guy’s complimenting him or trying to insult him. But guessing by the way the blonde’s shoulders are hunched and his jaw is clenched is that, despite everything, Buck’s mildly impressed by Eddie’s actions and it pains him to admit it.

And to Eddie, that’s not something that matters.

He doesn't care if he's impressed Buck or not.

What does matter — or at least catch Eddie’s attention the most and leaves him to linger on through the drive back to the firehouse, is the resentment in Buck’s voice and the dark look in his blue eyes.

Throughout the entire drive back, Eddie wonders what he’s done to the piss the guy off — how he’s barely even spoken to him, has probably only said five words to him, and the blonde hates him.

It makes zero sense, at least not when Eddie compares Hen and Chimney’s reactions of Eddie to Buck’s.

_ What the hell did he do to piss the guy off? _

This question plagues Eddie’s thoughts, leaving him feeling unsettled. 

**XXXIII.**

That evening, after going out on two more calls, Eddie has dinner with the team.

Bobby, as Eddie newly discovered, was a magical force in the kitchen. You give the guy a pan and some random ingredients, and he’ll make you a five-star Michelin meal.

It’s a quick affair, not only because of the fact that most of them are still on duty and the siren that alerts them to a new emergency has the habit of going off just as everyone sits down, but also because Eddie has Christopher to pick up. 

So, despite how lovely the meal that Bobby prepared was, Eddie doesn’t get to really enjoy the food that’s on his plate. Instead, he has to eat it in a rush, shoveling food as politely as he could into his mouth, the savory flavors of the dish barely hitting his tongue before he’s swallowing.

He explains away his absence to Bobby as a ‘family matter’ that Eddie has to deal with — which isn’t a lie — and thanked the older man for the meal before grabbing his stuff from his locker and heading to his car.

The weird looks he gets from his teammates don't go missed by Eddie, but he doesn't have the time to address the questions he knows they have.

The drive to his Abuela’s house isn’t quick, and since it’s about eight o’clock on a weeknight, the streets of LA are filled with vehicles. The only good thing about getting stuck in traffic at this hour is the fact that the sun is setting and the air has cooled, if only slightly. 

When Eddie finally gets to Abuela’s house, he finds her sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch, nursing a cup of coffee.

“ _ Abuelita_,” he greets her as he walks up the porch steps, leaning down and gathering the older woman in his arms. In response, Eddie’s Abuela wraps him in a one-arm hug.

The embrace lasts for a long moment and Eddie revels in his Abuela’s warmth and the comfort she brings before letting her go and taking a seat beside her on the swing.

Eddie watches as his Abuela’s brows furrow in concern.

Her eyes wander his body, assessing him, and Eddie finds himself on the receiving end of a worried stare.

“_ Te ves cansado _,” Abuela observes, and she reaches up and takes Eddie’s chin in her head and his head this way and that. Eddie doesn’t try to stop her, just lets the woman do as she wants, too tired to put a fight.

“It’s just been a long day,” he tells her, reclining back in the swing and rocking it back and forth by planting his feet against the deck and pushing back.

“_¿Quieres hablar acerca de ello?_”

“Sure,” Eddie says, even though he doesn’t want to talk about his first day at work. He just really wants to go home and curl up in the blankets and put the day behind him before he has to go back for Day Two tomorrow.

“How’s Christopher?” He asks instead of explaining his day, hoping his Abuela won’t see it for the subject change that it is, but she’s always been a perspective woman, and she sees right through Eddie’s walk-around.

“He’s fine, sleeping,” she answers, and Eddie feels her bring her hand up to the back of his neck, gripping it gently yet firmly. “But don’t try and change the subject on me, Edmundo. _ No soy tonta _.”

“I know.” Eddie leans back into his Abuela’s touch, letting her rub out the knots in his neck as he pinches the bridge of his nose, thinking over what he wants to say.

“...It wasn’t all bad,” he begins slowly, and he feels her hand briefly stop it’s movements before she starts moving it again. “My day was pretty good — the people there are nice, and my captain’s friendly but fair…”

“_ ¿Pero? _” Abuela prods when Eddie trails off.

“_But_...I think one of the guys there hates me.”

She gasps, “No!”

“Yeah,” Eddie nods. “He does.”

“_ No, no. No mi Eddie_. _Imposible_.”

“He does!” Eddie insists, placing his hand on her knee, giving it a comforting squeeze. “You should’ve seen the way he looked at me — like I was just the bane of his existence. And the worst part is that I don’t even know what I did to piss him off!”

“Oh, _ mi nieto_,” Abuela sighs, “I’m sure you’ll figure things out. Nobody can hate you for too long, Edmundo. _ Eres muy encantador _.”

“Okay, Abuela,” Eddie huffs out a laugh. “Although, I don’t think my _encanto_ is going to work on this guy.”

Abuela stares at him, completely baffled.

“Why wouldn’t it work?” she asks and Eddie shrugs.

“I don’t know, Abuela, maybe because the guy is, well, he’s..._a guy_.”

“_¿Entonces?_” She questions. “It is not like you’re trying to get in this man’s pants. I mean, unless…” Abuela pauses, a thoughtful expression taking over her face, and Eddie watches as her eyes go wide. “...Edmundo, are you trying to get into this man’s pants?”

At first, Eddie thinks he’s heard her wrong, as her words are so soft-spoken that he barely hears them. But when he notices the inquisitive way she’s looking at him does Eddie realizes, that no, he heard her perfectly.

Within his chest, Eddie’s heart beats a quick tattoo against his ribcage.

“No - no,” he stutters out, feeling a nervous flush take over the back of his neck and ears. “Why would you ask me that?”

“_Eddie—,_” Abuela tries, but Eddie doesn’t let her answer the question, doesn’t let her speak. 

“I need to go get Christopher,” he interrupts her, quickly standing from the swing and walking to the door. He thinks if he can just get in and get out that he can put this whole conversation behind him and pretend like it never happened. 

_ It won’t be that hard_, he tells himself like a mantra, _ just get in and get out_. 

His plans, however, are throttled when his Abuela, not fast enough to get up and catch him, but she has enough speed to reach out hurriedly and grab onto his free hand while his other is wrapped around the doorknob.

He can hear his blood pumping in his ears — like a loud roar, or the sound of water rushing from a faucet — as Abuela, ever-so-tenderly, caresses his knuckles with her thumb.

“Edmundo,” she whispers softly, and Eddie can’t bring himself to look at her as she talks, “_mi amor_, I do not care whose pants you get into. _Ya se trate de pantalones femeninos o masculinos. _My only worry is if you are happy.”

A shaky sigh escapes Eddie’s lips as his Abuela’s words sink in. 

_ My only worry is if you are happy. _

He runs through the conversation in his head, feeling like the world is spinning around him as he does.

There had been plenty of ways that Eddie had thought he would’ve had to _Come Out_ to Abuela with, but truthfully, Eddie had never planned on telling her. Or telling anyone, for that matter.

Sonya had been a fluke, mostly because Eddie had known, somewhere deep down, that she wouldn’t judge him. She had been safe.

But when Eddie goes over the list of people he might have to come out too, it mainly revolves around his family, and the very thought of that excruciatingly long list makes him sick. Has his stomach twisting into knots.

There are a few people that he was unsure of — of how they would react to Eddie’s big surprise. But there is one person on the list that Eddie know’s the reaction of and that’s his father. 

Ramon would definitely be angry (more like absolutely furious) with him. He’d throw a fit, and most likely, he would disown Eddie. Kick him out like one does the trash. 

The older man is extremely Catholic, and while Eddie doesn’t blame the religion for his father’s prejudices, it didn’t help the situation. He’s heard over the years the way his father has spoken about queer people; about how, in his eyes, that they belonged in Hell. That they are abominations. (Which couldn’t be farther from the truth.)

In Ramon’s eyes, things like romantic love, marriage, and practically every type of intimacy you could think of, should only be shared between a man and a woman.

If Eddie’s father ever found out that he was...that Eddie’s got a _certain interest_ in men, Ramon wouldn’t take kindly to the idea of having a son on the LGBTQ+ spectrum. The man could barely handle having a disabled grandson. 

Eddie’s mother, Helena, would do what she always does: follow Ramon’s lead. 

Eddie loves his mother, but when it comes to making decisions, it’s always his father that gets to make them. 

(Oh, you have an opinion? _ Too bad _. Ramon wouldn’t hear them if they weren’t his own.)

Eddie hadn’t wanted to come out to Isobel, and that’s because he knew that anything he told her, she’d relay to the rest of the family. It would be like one long chain — she’d tell one person, and they’d tell someone else, and before the end of the day, everyone would know. 

In the Diaz family, nothing stayed a secret for very long.

Hearing her say those words — _my only worry is if you are happy_ — eases some of the weight off Eddie’s chest. It also loosens the invisible noose that’s around his throat. He can breathe a little easier, but he doesn’t feel any less calm.

He can’t trust her.

She’ll tell the family, and they’ll hate him.

They’ll kick him to the curb, probably fight to have Christopher taken away from him because _it just wouldn’t be right_ to have his son around someone like Eddie, and Eddie will be left with nothing. 

With no one.

And...and — _Eddie can’t breathe._

His chest constricts and his lungs given a tight squeeze, and he’s gasping for air, but it’s like the world has suddenly lost its oxygen supply. 

“_ Querido, _” he hears, distantly. 

It sounds like his Abuela’s voice, and he focuses on it, tethering himself to it like it’s a lifesaver and he’ll somehow drown without it. 

(He knows he will, but with her voice, Eddie no longer feels like he’s being dragged under. Like the waves of his inner turmoil aren’t crashing as violently; that they are slowly calming down to gently lap at the shore of his consciousness.)

When he glances down at Isobel, through his teary-gaze he can see her already looking up at him. It surprises Eddie when he notices that her expression isn’t one of disgust, but one of love.

The last time he had seen that look of affection on her face, she’d been gazing at Christopher as a baby, as she had him swaddled in her arms. It was so long ago, that moment of time, but he sees it again now. How her brown eyes, like liquid amber, are so warm and bright. There’s no malice in them. 

_ Just love, _ he tells himself.

“You love me?” he says, the words tumbling from his mouth without his permission. He had meant it as a statement but it came out as a question.

Abuela tilts her head at him, smiling at him.

“Of course, I do, _ mijo _,” she tells him, squeezing his hand a little harder.

Eddie wants to believe her, he really does. But he can’t.

There’s that little voice in the back of his head telling him _ she doesn’t love you _ and _ you’re an abomination _. All he wants to do is scream back that he’s not -- that Abuela does love him and that he’s normal.

“How?” Eddie can’t help but ask. 

Isobel goes still, her eyebrows wrinkling together in confusion.

“How can I love you?” She asks back, and Eddie nods, not trusting himself to speak. Abuela takes a moment to herself to think before she answers and Eddie’s mouth goes dry as he waits, feeling like he’s sinking back down just when he began to rise from it. 

When she does finally speak, she’s looking him dead in the eye, kindly but determined. 

“Do you remember when you were little and you broke my vase?”

Eddie raises a confused eyebrow, not expecting her to ask him _ that _.

“You mean the one you got as a wedding present and I broke it when I was playing baseball with Abuelo?”

“_ Si, _” she nods, “that’s the one. And do you also remember what I told you when I saw it in shards?”

It takes Eddie a minute to reflect that far back in his memory for that exact moment, but he finds it after digging through some mind boxes.

He remembers being ten and playing with his Abuelo in the yard at his grandparent’s house, and how Eddie had meant to toss the baseball to his Abuelo but had swung a little too hard with his arm and the ball had gone soaring in the air, passed the older man, and through the front window and smashed into the vase sitting on the coffee table.

At the time, his Abuela had been in the kitchen, cooking lunch and when she had heard the commotion she'd come running into the living room to find her precious vase -- a one of a kind antique -- laying in pieces on the floor, shards of glass having been scattered everywhere. And when Eddie had walked into the living room, he’d gone in thinking he was going to get the lecture of a lifetime, wondering if Abuela would hate him and wouldn’t love him anymore.

(Obviously, she doesn’t hate him, that she’d forgiven him for the accident. And while Eddie understands what she’s trying to say, he doesn’t care for the irony in this particular situation.)

Against his will, his lips quirk up at the sides.

“You said,” Eddie huffs out a wet laugh, “you said, _‘Edmundo, it’s just a vase. You didn’t mean to break it.’_”

“That’s true,” Abuela agrees with him, but adds, “But that’s not all I said. I also told you that the vase was replaceable. That I could always find something as beautiful as it. But I couldn’t with you, _ cariño _ . There will never be someone as lovely as you, Edmundo. And that’s why I love you. _ You’re irreplaceable. _ ”

Eddie feels the tears he’s been trying to hold back, fall. 

They well in his eyes and slip down his cheeks, like little rivers. 

Abuela brings the hand not holding onto his up to Eddie’s face and gently wipes the wet streaks from his cheeks.

Eddie bites his lip.

“You mean that?”

“Yes, Eddie,” she chuckles, cupping his cheek. “I mean that. _ Te quiero. _”

Eddie leans into her touch, feeling like the world is stitching itself back together, no longer fraying at the seams.

“Sometimes,” Abuela begins, “life gives you a twist-ball, and you just have to go with it. But I could never love you any less, Eddie._ Never. _ Understand?”

“I understand,” Eddie tells her, taking in a deep breath. “...And it’s a called a curve-ball.”

“What is?”

“It’s…” Eddie starts but closes his mouth, sighing. “Nevermind. It’s not important.”

Abuela just waves her hand at him in response. 

“Go,” she says, “Get Christopher. And have a goodnight, _ mi nieto _ _ . _”

“You too,” Eddie says, leaning down to press a quick peck to her forehead. 

“_ Te amo _,” he calls from over his shoulder as he enters the house, and he hears her shout something indescribable. Eddie just grunts out an affirmative as he treks through the entry-way, his feet carrying him to the guest-bedroom where he knows his son will be sleeping, ready to collect him and bring back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, hey, look at that! They finally met!
> 
> I'm very, very sorry that it took so long for me to update this fic. 
> 
> I would've updated this sooner but I received the unfortunate news that my mother is sick, so, I've been dealing with that and helping her through her treatments as best I can. But thank you for being patient with me and not giving up on this fic. It means so much. Even though this was one of the stressors in my life I was trying to avoid, it was also one of the more positive things I've had to look forward too.
> 
> If you enjoyed this update, please leave a kudos/comment! Let me know what you think.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by not only my need to have Buck and Eddie be together, but also OneRepublic song 'Rescue Me' and Lady Gaga's 'The Cure'.


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